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OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 





OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


LIFE STORIES OF THE SEVEN AMERICAN CARDINALS 
MC CLOSKEY, GIBBONS, FARLEY, 0’CONNELL, 
DOUGHERTY, MUNDELEIN, HAYES 


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BY \2 AN 
Vv i 
JAMES J. WALSH Logica s 


MDS PELDiWLITT Dy KCST.G, 


MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF FORDHAM UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SERVICE; 
PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY, CATHEDRAL COLLEGE, 
NEW YORK; AUTHOR OF “THE THIRTEENTH—GREATEST OF 
CENTURIES,” “THE WORLD’S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC 
CHURCH,” “PSYCHOTHERAPY,” “CURES,” ETC. 


en, 
eR arr e 





The ideal is not a dream but your practical 
duty of every day. 
CARDINAL MERCIER. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
mew ONORK tien 1020 ce LONDON 


COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO THE MEMORY OF 
OUR FIRST AMERICAN CARDINAL 


JOHN, CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 
OF NEW YORK 





INTRODUCTION 


Cardinals are the highest ecclesiastics in the 
Roman Catholic Church next to the Pope. The 
word cardinal comes from the Latin word cardo, a 
hinge, which is probably derived from the Greek 
keadav swing, and the cardinals are the hinges on 
which swing the authority of the Church through- 
out the world. ‘They are chosen from the various 
countries more or less according to the number of 
Catholics among the various peoples and the dignity 
of the episcopal sees which they hold. They are 
members of what is known as the Sacred College of 
Cardinals and act as counselors to the Pope in the 
government of the Church. On the death of the 
Pope the ecclesiastical authority devolves on them 
and they administer the Church’s faculties, shape 
its policies and protect the Church’s interests until 
the election of a new Pope. They are appointed by 
the Pope and are of three classes or orders, cardinal 
bishops, six in number, cardinal priests, fifty in 
number, and cardinal deacons, fourteen in all. 
Vacancies nearly always exist in the College of 
Cardinals and the full number of seventy is seldom 
complete. 


Vill INTRODUCTION 


Cardinals the world over undoubtedly represent. 
more fully than any other members of the hierarchy 
the spirit of the Church. Hence sketches of the lives 
of cardinals that we have had here in the United 
States down to the present time comprise the most 
trustworthy and absolutely reliable evidence as to 
the attitude of the Church toward this country and 
toward American ideals. They were chosen for 
advancement to the second highest dignity in the 
Church after years of service which served to reveal. 
their characters and proclaim what their influence 
was likely to be. Almost needless to say under these 
circumstances while they were always outstanding 
factors in the religious life of their day they were 
not always the most brilliantly intellectual but were 
chosen for the qualities of their hearts and souls as 
well as of their heads. Mr. Bertrand Russell re- 
minded us not long since that we still have need for 
that word “heart’’ in psychology, for by it we mean 
those qualities of mankind through which men ex- 
press “the sum total of kindly impulses” and 
thoughtfulness for others. He added, that where 
these kindly impulses exist and are developed “‘sci- 
ence helps them to be effective; where they are 
absent science only makes men more cleverly dia- 
bolic.” 


While all of our American cardinals have been 


INTRODUCTION ix 


broadly cultured men in the best sense of that word 
and most of them have impressed themselves deeply 
on their generation by their intellectual qualities, 
none of them had the advantage of what is so often 
considered to be necessary for culture, early home 
influences in the midst of family life where ease and 
plenty provided opportunities for special esthetic 
development. All of our American cardinals have 
come from among the people and have known a 
little something at least of straitened circumstances 
in their early years. Most of them had that very 
precious experience which Thucydides, the great 
Greek historian, valued so highly, of having to go 
through hard things when they were young. If it 
were only the ecclesiastical seminaries of the older 
days, with their stern strict discipline, and their, to 
say the least, utter simplicity of food and accommo- 
dations, the American cardinals when young were 
subjected to conditions which that wise old Greek 
with his knowledge of men thought more likely to 
develop character and personality than any others. 
For Thucydides declared that the majority of men 
are possessed of about the same human qualities 
and only a few of them rise above the average of 
mankind because they had to submit to hardships 
in their youth. 

Our American cardinals have not been men who 


x INTRODUCTION 


have been in the public eye except in so far as their 
ecclesiastical duties at various times during life 
happen to evoke publicity. Asa rule they have been 
least of all publicity seekers in any sense of that 
“term. ‘They have been simple, sincere men known 
for their fidelity to the practice of religious duties, 
and for their readiness to make sacrifices in the 
cause that they had most at heart. Sacrifice is the 
primary essence of religion. Above all, these men 
have been noteworthy for their readiness to be help- 
ful to others just as far as in them lay. ‘The one 
quality that has stood out in the lives of all the 
American cardinals has been profound thoughtful- 
ness for others and a notable lack of anything like 
selfishness. 

A great saint once said, “Show me some one who 
forgets himself or herself completely and I will 
show you some one whom the world will not will- 
ingly forget.’ The men destined to be cardinals 
here in the United States have done the next thing 
that came to hand in the course of duty just as well 
as possible and after a while they have wakened up 
to the fact that the world was paying attention to 
them and that their ecclesiastical superiors recog- 
nized the worth of their personalities. Brought up 
in a republic where every man necessarily learns 
some lessons in politics, there has been almost none 


INTRODUCTION x1 


of the politician in them. One ecclesiastical position 
after another was fulfilled so well that advancement 
has naturally come to the next. ‘They have been 
told, ‘Friend, come up higher.’ Not infrequently 
they have taken a place that was being striven for 
by others though they had not realized at times the 
pressure around them. 

In a well-known passage Robert Louis Stevenson, 
contrasting the position that the physician and the 
clergyman hold in relation to their fellow mortals, 
expressed a view that is perhaps rather common 
among those situated like Stevenson himself, who 
know clergymen very little and, from force of cir- 
cumstances because they are ill, know much about 
physicians. He said, ‘There are men and classes 
of men that stand above the common herd: the 
soldier, the sailor, and the shepherd not infre- 
quently; the artist rarely; rarelier still, the clergy- 
men; the physician almost as a rule.” ‘This very 
flattering contrast for the physician is not often ex- 
pressed by Stevenson’s colleagues among literary 
men, but on the contrary they are prone to depre- 
cate the physician and from Moliere and even 
earlier down to our own day have been very ready 
to impugn his motives and contemn his science. It 
is a question of intimate knowledge. From Steven- 
son later in the South Seas after he had come to 


xil INTRODUCTION 


know Father Damien, the leper priest of Molokai, 
we had highest words of praise for a clergyman. I 
have the feeling that all that is needed to have 
Catholic clergymen thoroughly appreciated is to 
know them well. ‘“The man I don’t like is the man 
I don’t know,” is a very old expression in English 
that can be traced back to the Greek. Having 
known these American cardinals myself I am very 
much inclined to think that the only thing necessary 
for others to appreciate them properly is to know 
them well; hence this volume. 

I feel assured that Stevenson would have found 
these men, had he known them well, to be among the 
“shepherds” who to his mind so frequently stand 
above the common herd They have all been men 
who are intent on caring for others and especially 
those who most needed care Our own cardinal in 
New York declared when they tendered him his 
first public banquet in honor of his new dignity that 
he would much prefer that they should think of him 
as the shepherd of his flock rather than the cardinal 
prince of the Church. Such I know from personal 
acquaintance are the feelings of the other cardinals 
of our day, as they were of our dead cardinals. They — 
spent themselves in charity, that is not in that 
mere helping of the unfortunate which has some- 
times in modern times been considered to be the 


INTRODUCTION Xlil 


whole meaning of the word charity, but in the culti- 
vation of that dearness to them of other people 
because of the brotherhood of man and the father- 
hood of God that represents the highest develop- 
ment of human character that we can have. Our 
cardinals have been men who have tried to the full- 
est of their power to make life for their fellowmen 
as happy and as whole-heartedly satisfying as it 
would be. 

In doing so they have above all reached out their 
hands to those who were lowest in the social scale, 
they have remembered whether consciously or not 
Christ’s expression that the greatest mark of His 
Church is that “the Gospel is preached to the poor.” 
Though they belonged to what is by far the oldest 
aristocracy in the world, an aristocracy of charac- 
ter and not of birth, which has far outlived the 
monarchs and the dynasties, the noble families and 
the political institutions of all kinds throughout the 
civilized world, they have themselves been thor- 
oughly democratic in their ways and in their attitude 
of mind toward those around them. 

Our American cardinals, all of them, illustrate 
very well President Wilson’s expression with regard 
to the Church as representing through her great 
ecclesiastics the most important element in the de- 
velopment and maintenance of the spirit of democ- 


xiV INTRODUCTION 
racy during the Middle Ages. While he was presi- 


dent of Princeton and before the burden of respon- 
sibility as President of the United States came to 
make such well-weighed expressions on _ historical 
subjects no longer possible, Mr. Wilson paid a 
tribute to the Church that deserves to be recalled. 
Almost needless to say, after his long studies of 
the history of the American people and their democ- 
racy with its vicissitudes for well above a hundred 
years as the background of his own historical 
mindedness, President Wilson was eminently well 
fitted to have an opinion in the matter and had the 
right to have that opinion carry weight. He said, 
in the volume known as The New Freedom, ‘The 
only reason why government did not suffer dry rot 
in the Middle Ages under the aristocratic systems 
which then prevailed was that the men who were 
eficient instruments of government were drawn 
from the Church—from that great Church, that 
body which we now distinguish from other Church 
bodies as the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman 
Catholic Church then and now was a great democ- 
racy. There was no peasant so humble that he 
might not become a priest, and no priest so obscure 
that he might not become Pope of Christendom, 
and every chancellery of Europe was ruled by those 
learned, trained and accomplished men—the priest- 


INTRODUCTION XV 


hood of that great and then dominant Church; and 
so what kept government alive in the Middle Ages 
was this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, 
from the rank and file of the great body of the 
people, through the open channels of the Roman 
Catholic priesthood.” 

That very acute politician who knew men so well, 
Mark Hanna, is said once to have declared that 
there were two great safeguards against anarchy in 
the United States, ‘‘the United States Supreme 
Court and the Roman Catholic Church.” In this 
country there is no such union of Church and State 
as would enable great Roman Catholic ecclesiastics 
to be of direct political significance as they were in 
the days when they ruled as the chancellors of 
Europe. It was not at all with any idea as to their 
political import but their moral significance that 
Senator Hanna made his declaration. Even a little 
study of the lives of our American cardinals makes 
it very clear that they represent an abiding influence 
for good among the people such as was exerted by 
their colleagues of the older time to whom political 
office came unsought as a rule. 

The cardinal of Belgium whom Hilaire Belloc 
proclaimed “‘the greatest figure in contemporary his- 
tory” has just passed from us. His career exempli- 
fied what a great churchman can mean for his people 


XV1 INTRODUCTION 


in our generation. Cardinal Mercier was a su- 
premely great-souled man who eminently deserves 
all the tributes that have been paid to him since his 
death. Just after middle life he had said, ““The ideal 
is not a dream, but your practical duty of every day.” 
That was the maxim which ruled his life and 
eventually made him the most conspicuous person- 
ality brought out by the Great War. It would not 
be too much to say that our American cardinals, all 
of them, have been men for whom this maxim of 
practical idealism was a great living truth exempli- 
fied very thoroughly in their official and personal 
activity. With regards even to Cardinal Mercier 
and his work there were dissentient voices and in his 
middle life he had to meet attack and derision and 
even the attempt to have certain of his expressions 
condemned. In the course of time, to quote the 
words of a recent biographical sketch by Mrs. Ver- 
non Kellogg in the May Atlantic (1926), his people 
came to have “‘an overwhelming sense of his love for 
them.” That is probably what will be said of all our 
American cardinals when the ultimate verdict on 
them is passed. 

The Americanism of our American cardinals has 
been the keynote of their character. They have been 
men of lofty patriotism willing to make sacrifices 
for their country and ever ready to use all the in- 


INTRODUCTION XVii 


fluence that their high office gave them to make 
American Catholics better Americans in every sense 
of the word. It is easy to see that their one purpose 
was to make life happier for all in this country and 
do all in their power to maintain and pass on to 
future generations the precious heritage of liberty 
and the fine legacy of democracy which the Fathers 
of the country succeeded in securing and confided to 
future generations to carry on. The dead cardinals 
are enshrined in the hearts of their people, the liv- 
ing cardinals are the best representatives of the 
Catholic Church and the surest way to learn the 
meaning of Catholicity for our country is to know 
the lives of these men. 


r 


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id et, ow Se 





“T consider it a grace of God not to have had in my youth 
abundance, for there I learned to appreciate suffering and 
to understand it.” 

CARDINAL MERCIER 


tah 


a 





PREFACE 


During recent years a great many people, noting 
the growth of the Roman Catholic Church in this 
country, have come to ask themselves and others the 
question, what is the place of the Catholic Church in 
a great liberty loving country like ours? I think 
that the best answer to that question is afforded by 
the lives of the men who have risen to be cardinals 
of the Church in this country. Belgium learned in 
time of trial how precious a cardinal might be. 
May we here in the United States be spared any 
such rude lesson, but it is well to know that our 
cardinals are of the same strain. By their leaders, ye 
shall know them. 

By a fortunate coincidence I happen to have 
known personally all seven of the American car- 
dinals. ‘This has tempted me to think that per- 
haps I could present their lives in such a way as 
to make Americans understand them better. 





CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

Joun, CarpInAL McCioskeEy 
JAMES, CARDINAL GIBBONS 
JOHN, CARDINAL FARLEY 
WILLIAM, CARDINAL O’CONNELL 
DENNIS, CARDINAL DOUGHERTY . 
GEORGE, CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 
PATRICK, CARDINAL HAYEs . 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


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OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


JOHN, CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 
First AMERICAN CARDINAL 


Tue first American cardinal, John McCloskey, 
archbishop of New York, was one of those gentle, 
charming men whom those who knew him well 
learned first to admire and then to love and rever- 
ence. He was in many ways a reminder of that 
wonderful character, St. Francis de Sales, whom so 
many people even when without sympathy for his 
apostolic labors as a great Catholic bishop, have 
learned to think of so reverently. Bulwer Lytton, 
writing to his friend, Lady Sherborne, toward the 
end of his life said, “I read last night the life of 
St. Francis de Sales. That Roman Catholic Faith, 
between you and me, does produce very fine speci- 
mens of adorned humanity—at once so sweet and so 
heroic.” ‘These are words that apply very well to 
our first American cardinal during his long career 
as a churchman here in America. He was, so far 


i 


2 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


as his mind and heart were concerned, a marvelously 
fine specimen of “‘adorned humanity.” His very 
lovable character proved gentle and patient under 
some of the severest trials that come to men. The 
heroic elements in his life were much more in evi- 
dence than might possibly be expected in the career 
of a man whom manifestly his superiors picked out 
early in life for higher things and then proceeded 
to afford the opportunities for such development of 
mind and heart as would make him adequate for 
them. 

The future cardinal was born March 20, 1810, 
in what was the little town of Brooklyn, N. Y., 
then very different from the great “city of churches”’ 
that was to spring into existence in the years to 
come even before its amalgamation with the greater 
city of New York. I have often called attention to 
the fact that most of the men who do things worth 
while are born in small towns. Such men as Marshal 
Foch and Cardinal Mercier as well as Pasteur and 
Mendel, and ever so many other men in our time 
are striking examples of this, which seems to have 
been almost the rule of humanity down the cen- 
turies. Shakespeare was born in a little town and 
so were practically all the men who achieved fame 
in the London of his day, in Elizabethan and Jac- 
obean times. Practically every one of the men 





Brown Brothers 


CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY 





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CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 3 


whom we know as Romans were born not in Rome 
itself but outside of it, and all the men of the Silver 
Age who distinguished themselves in Rome were 
born over in Spain. Even Athens did not give birth 
to its great men, but such supreme Athenians as 
fEschylus and Sophocles and Euripides were born 
outside of Athens. It is possible that the large city 
acts as something of an incubus on those who are 
brought up in it and does not permit that full devel- 
opment of talent as well as genius which comes so 
much more characteristically in the midst of the 
small towns where less is thought about what people 
will think and say as regards new developments that 
may occur. 

His parents, Patrick McCloskey and Elizabeth 
Hassin, natives of Dungiven, County Derry, in the 
north of Ireland, came to America in 1808 after 
their marriage. They belonged to that rather large 
group of Irish people who came out to America in 
the generation before the famine and who made it 
a noteworthy distinction for themselves—-as my 
grandmother never failed to do if occasion offered 
—that they had left Ireland not under the dire com- 
pulsion of necessity and starvation hanging over 
them but of their own free choice because they were 
sure that they could better themselves in this great 
free country and had the means to make the at- 


4 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


tempt. The McCloskeys were not well-to-do, were 
on the contrary in very moderate circumstances, but 
they were thrifty with the spirit of the north of 
Ireland and they succeeded in getting on quite well. 
With the Irish worship of education they wanted 
their son to have the advantage of the best possible 
development of mind that they could afford. When 
he was about ten their boy was sent to the leading 
classical school in New York City at that time, kept 
by Thomas Brady, father of James T. and John R. 
Brady, who were to be so well-known in the after 
life of New York. ‘This Brady School was one of 
the landmarks in education in New York in those 
early days before the development of our public- 
school system. 

At the age of twelve John McCloskey was sent 
to Mt. St. Mary’s College, Emmitsburg, Md. Of 
course he did not enter the college department but 
the first year of the seven-year course of three 
grammar classes and four college classes which then 
constituted the college education of the time. A 
little more than fifty years later when I entered St. 
John’s College, Fordham, that was still the school 
and college curriculum under the French influences | 
which were still paramount, for St. John’s was as 
yet in the New York and Canada Province of the 
Society of Jesus. Similar French factors were at 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 5 


work at Emmitsburg where young McCloskey came 
under the influence of two distinguished French 
priests, both of them afterward bishops, Dubois, 
who became Bishop of New York, and Bruté who 
went to Bardstown, Ky. They had much to do not 
only with the development of his intelligence but also 
with the formation of his character. Probably no- 
where in the country at that time could a boy secure 
a more solid education with due training of both 
intellect and will than in the ‘Old Mountain”’ as it 
was affectionately called by its graduates. From it 
came a great many of the Catholic bishops of the 
country and probably nothing shows the worth of 
Mt. St. Mary’s education so well as the fact that 
these bishops deeply influenced their generations 
throughout the United States and built up the 
American Church in accordance with the strictest 
Catholicity and the highest American ideals under 
conditions that were always difficult and sometimes 
must have seemed almost impossible. 

One of the great difficulties of the college was 
transportation. ‘This constituted also one of the 
sources of efficient training of muscles and will. 
The students came by stagecoach from Baltimore, 
Frederick and Hanover, not minding if they had to 
walk some considerable distances on the way so long 
as they could ship their baggage. Long walks were 


6 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the order of that day. Father (afterward Bishop) 
Bruté, as president of Mt. St. Mary’s, used to go 
in from the college to Baltimore on business at regu- 
lar intervals, but did it on foot. The distance by the 
rude roads of the period, often little better than 
bridle paths, was about fifty miles. Horses were 
needed very much for farm work, and so the presi- 
dent did not feel that it was quite proper for him 
to take one of them away from the farm for several 
days. He used to start very early in the morning, 
dine in the middle of the day with some friends who 
lived some thirty miles on the way and rest for a 
couple of hours, and then be in Baltimore in the 
evening. He has been known to spend all the next 
day doing business errands of various kinds in Balti- 
more and then start back the third day for Emmits- 
burg, which he would reach in the evening, having 
walked a hundred miles and spent most of the inter- 
vening day on his feet in Baltimore. With an ex- 
ample like this the students must have felt that the 
inconveniences of travel ought to be borne as a 
matter of course. | 
Emmitsburg in those old days was undoubtedly 
rude in its provisions of even what might have 
seemed almost the necessaries of life. Here is an 
account of the day at ‘““[The Mountain,” written by 
one of the Elder family with regard to life in the 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 7 


college within five years of the time when young 
McCloskey entered the school. Though improve- 
ments came rapidly it is doubtful whether there was 
much change in the daily program before the young 
Brooklyn student’s introduction to boarding-school 
life as it was lived in the twenties of the nineteenth 
century. ‘“‘We were awakened at a very early hour 
in the morning (5 A.M.) by one of the prefects 
walking up and down the dormitory, smacking his 
hands together with a noise that could be heard all 
over the house—and if any fellow was observed 
playing ‘‘possum,”’ his cot was tilted to one side and 
he was unceremoniously dumped out on the floor. 
As each boy finished his toilet, which was done gen- 
erally in about two minutes, he went down to take 
his morning ablutions at the pump, so-called, but it 
was no pump at all—being simply a long trough dug 
out of a solid log, pierced at both sides with a dozen 
or more holes through which the water flowed con- 
tinually day and night, summer and winter, and we 
had only to catch two or three double handfuls of 
water—souse our faces and wipe them off with a 
towel with which every fellow provided himself as 
he went from the dormitory. In the winter time 
the feat of washing was often accompanied with 
accidents that afforded fun for the fellows but no 
fun for the actor. The splashing of the water, 


8 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


freezing in front of the trough, formed a mound of 
ice just where we had to get in order to catch the 
water—and it was an everyday occurrence for some 
of us to get a fall and often to slip into the pool 
which was formed by the frozen spray—and many 
a time we found our faces fringed round with icicles 
formed on our hair during the short time it took us 
to make our ablutions on those bitter winter 
mornings. * 

‘In the winter time after washing, we had morn- 
ing prayers in the big play room, but in the summer 
we went up to the church on the mountain to hear 
Mass. ‘Then we had a short study and after that, 


* There is a story told of one of the English public schools, the 
underlying experience in which could very probably have been 
paralleled in the Emmitsburg of those days. In the winter time 
there was very inadequate provision of heat, and one morning 
one of the small new boys, rather fresh as yet from his mother’s 
delicate care of him, was discovered blowing on his fingers, they 
were so cold, and with tears running down his cheeks. ‘The 
head master came along and discovered him and asked what was 
the matter. When the boy said that it was so cold he could not 
stand it, the head master said gruffy: “Well, this is no young 
ladies’ seminary.” Curiously enough, some twenty years later, 
when that boy, as a captain in the English army, was given the 
order to charge in battle under circumstances where it seemed 
almost inevitable that he would never come back alive, for he 
and his men were quite literally being sent in as a forlorn hope 
to save the rest of the army, he remarked to his colonel, who 
came from the same school, as he touched his cap after receiving 
the order to advance, and was just ready to lead his men, “Well, 
this is what old [naming the head master] would say is 
no young ladies’ seminary.” ‘The men who have to go through 
hard things when they are young, come out of them ready for 
still harder things as they grow older. 





ee 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 9 


breakfast, which was a frugal repast indeed; a big 
bowl of good hot coffee and a hunk of bread which 
the boys generally broke up in the coffee—no butter 
—no meat nor relish of any kind. For dinner we 
had meat and gravy in abundance—but there was 
no attention paid to carving, and the whole service 
was of the most primitive character—but the fea- 
ture of our dinners in the summer and fall, was the 
gumbo soup—that was luxurious—and although I 
have been a lover of gumbo soup ever since I learned 
to eat it there, it seems to me I have never found 
any so good as what we had at School. Supper was 
the same as breakfast, with the additional accom- 
paniment occasionally of a little butter.” 

John McCloskey was always rather delicate in 
health and continued all during life to be of slight 
frame that would apparently not be able to stand 
much. The climate of Maryland was probably 
much more healthy for him than would have been 
that of any place farther north, though ‘The 
Mountain” must have been trying enough during 
the colder weather. His delicate constitution kept 
him from being interested much in college sports. 
They were really sports in those days and not train- 
ing for games with outside colleges. There was 
much more time for occupation with the things of 
the mind because there was not so much interest in 


10 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the things of the body. He was one of the best 
students at Mt. St. Mary’s in his time, a leader in 
his classes, and deeply devoted to his work. 

After seven years of college work, which con- 
sisted mainly of the classics and of mathematics and 
French as a modern language, he did his philosophy 
and theology during the next five years and was 
ordained at the age of twenty-four. He had already 
given abundant evidence of breadth of intellectual 
interest and of a mind desirous of culture and his 
life was to develop these very fully. For more than 
a generation the tradition of his gentle scholarliness 
continued to be one of the precious heritages of 
“The Mountain.” 

All his life John McCloskey remained one of 
these frail mortals who have to be careful about 
themselves all the time or they are likely to suffer 
severely from indiscretions and yet who so often 
succeed in accomplishing an immense deal of work 
and live on to a long life far beyond the average of 
humanity. As long ago as Plato’s time it was hinted 
that the invalid was the long liver among men and 
Oliver Wendell Holmes in our time gave us the 
formula that for a long life probably the best thing 
is for a man to have some mild chronic ill which de- 
mands that he take good care of himself, for this 
often enables him to live on when the rashness of 


4 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY II 


the vigorous because of their exuberant health or 
the indiscretions of thoughtlessness in the very 
healthy often lead to premature termination of ex- 
istence. Few men accomplished more in their lives 
than Cardinal McCloskey though all his life he 
probably felt that there were not many years ahead 
of him of which he could be absolutely assured. 
This uncertainty of life did not give him pause in 
his work nor set him to waste of time over idle 
dreads, nor the putting off of necessary develop- 
ments in his diocese that were demanded by the 
rapid growth of the population. He left the future 
to Providence but did his work to the best possible 
effect in the present. 

He was ordained in old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in 
New York, down on Mott Street, January 12, 1834, 
the first native of New York State to enter the 
secular priesthood. No one was surprised when a 
brief month after his ordination he was named at the 
beginning of the second college term in February, 
professor of philosophy in the new college of the 
diocese of New York which had been opened at 
Nyack on the Hudson. It was very probably for- 
tunate for him and his career that the college was 
destroyed by fire in its first year, for otherwise he 
would almost surely have continued in the arduous 
duties of professor of philosophy for some years at 


12 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


least. His health was not such as would permit him 
to give himself at that time to work of this char- 
acter. There was serious danger after his dozen 
of years of college and his devotion to his studies of 
an almost inevitable breakdown. ‘This would prob- 
ably have been rather serious in character, for the 
men of that time, knowing how much their services 
were needed, did not give up until they could not 
possibly go on and the result might have been very 
definitely harmful for his future work and career, 
but providentially he was spared that danger. 

After the fire Father McCloskey asked permis- 
sion to travel in Europe in order to prepare himself 
for further teaching work. No one knew better 
than he how much he lacked to make him a good 
teacher. As it would be some considerable time 
before the college could be reopened, he was given 
permission to spend a year or more in Europe and 
his leave of absence lengthened itself out to three 
years and he had a magnificent chance, which was 
taken very well, to secure all the advantages of a. 
European tour and particularly of a prolonged resi- 
dence in Rome. 

He kept a diary of this trip which has served 
to show succeeding generations how much he valued 
the opportunities that were thus afforded them, 
though at the same time it makes very clear how 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 13 


much his own gentle scholarliness was recognized 
and his character appreciated by men who were 
themselves leaders of thought at that time. It is 
interesting, for instance, to realize that this young 
man of twenty-five who had the advantage only of 
what would be called in all candor a “backwoods 
education” in America, made lifelong friends during 
his stay in Rome of such prominent Church digni- 
taries as Cardinals Fesch and Weld. 

Above all, his diary serves to reveal his own dis- 
cernment of talent and character, for some of those 
with whom he was brought in contact in his years 
in Rome were those who were not only to be raised 
to the dignity of cardinal later in life, such men as 
Reisach, Angelo Mai, Mezzofanti, Wiseman and 
Cullen, but who were to be looked upon as the 
leading churchmen and scholars of their generation. 
There must have been something very precious in 
the personality of this young man from America to 
have attracted the attention of these distinguished 
churchmen. The very fact that he came to know 
them and admire them was of itself the best por- 
tent of the distinction which he himself was to reach 
later in life. His Roman experience was indeed of 
the greatest value to him because bringing him in 
touch with these great churchmen it prepared his 
mind and heart and soul for his future work in 


14 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


America. In the course of his lifetime the Ameri- 
can republic was to accumulate a population larger 
than any of the European countries except Russia 
and was to take her place among the major nations 
of the earth. To have the advantage of the future 
years of a man thus brought in contact with the 
greatest churchmen of his generation was indeed to 
be of the most signal benefit to the American Church. 

The delicacy of his health would not permit the 
young priest to become a formal student in any 
of the colleges in Rome, but he took up his residence 
in the monastery of the Theatines at San Andrea 
del Valle was registered as a special student of the 
Gregorian University conducted by the Jesuits. 
Here he sat under such learned professors as Fathers 
Perrone and Manera, men who carried out ad- 
mirably the traditions of the finest days of Jesuit 
teaching in the Gregorian University. The Jesuits 
had been suppressed in 1773 and the “new society”’ 
as it was still called was as yet scarcely a generation 
away from the restoration but already it was dem- 
onstrating very clearly that the best traditions 
of the old society were living on again after the 
resurrection. Father McCloskey proceeded to take 
advantage of this to the fullest extent possible for 
him. 

While his health did not permit hard study the 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 15 


necessity for gentle exercise in the open air took him 
out every day to view the monuments of Rome until 
he became intimately familiar with all the great 
landmarks of the city. The traditional culture of 
Rome with its long years of history and its me- 
morials of the Republic, of the Empire, of the classic 
writers and the great emperors, of the Fathers of 
the Church, of the Middle Ages, and finally of the 
Renaissance, were everywhere around him there and 
influenced him deeply. ‘The result of these fortunate 
opportunities almost thrust upon him was that he 
became very literally a man of fine culture and of 
profound sympathy with all the great movements 
of thought in history. He thoroughly appreciated 
the chances for that education higher than most 
people could possibly secure that were thus afforded 
him. He missed none of them. He probably 
realized that only to few men is given the oppor- 
tunity thus afforded him to secure breadth and depth 
of education in what so well deserve to be called 
the humanities. 

Every day had its task and each new setting sun 
found him knowing a little more of this wonderful 
old city which contains in a palimpsest, so many of 
the phases of the history of human development. 
Such expressions might seem to be merely bits of 
more or less imaginative trimming introduced by a 


16 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


biographer but he himself wrote in a letter to a 
friend, ‘‘Each day affords new sources of pleasure 
and an intellectual banquet of which one can never 
partake to satiety.’ He realized, moreover, how 
fortunate he was in having had his long years of 
classical and ecclesiastical training at ‘“The Moun- 


b] 


tain,’ which enabled him to appreciate all this, for 
in writing to that same friend he said, ‘‘What can- 
not one enjoy who comes to this great classic and 
holy city with a mind prepared to appreciate its 
historic and religious charms?” 

After more than two years spent in Rome in this 
gloriously educational way, Father McCloskey spent 
the most of a third year in travel through Italy, 
France, Germany, Belgium, England and Ireland. 
He had the chance in the forties of the nineteenth 
century to make what they used to call in the eight- 
eenth century the “grand tour,” which university 
students, especially in England, were expected to 
make on the Continent as a sort of graduate work. 
We are inclined to think in our day of graduate 
work as a comparatively modern invention but 
nothing, so far as I know, that we have at the 
present time, could possibly compare in significance 
with a year or more of travel on the Continent, 
interested in art and architecture, in the arts and 
crafts, and in the peoples and their ways, which so 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 17 


many eighteenth-century students enjoyed. It must 
have been of the greatest broadening influence of 
mind and must have represented a real culmination 
of education. The fact that travel was ever so much 
slower than at the present time was a decided ad- 
vantage. People could not be whisked from large 
city to large city, seeing scarcely anything of points 
along the way, but had to stop at many of the 
smaller places overnight at least and often for some 
days and saw the country leisurely and were likely 
to come in intimate contact with the typically na- 
tional ways and not merely with the tourist customs 
of certain larger cities. 

The period during which Father McCloskey was 
in Rome and on his travels in Europe was a very 
precious one for the Church. The French Revo- 
lution had very seriously disturbed men’s minds and 
led a great many of them away from their loyalty 
to the Church. France, the eldest daughter of the 
Church, so far from being the representative Cath- 
olic country had become the home of rationalism and 
atheism, and with her religious dispersed, her monas- 
teries suppressed, many of her bishops banished 
when not guillotined, it seemed almost impossible 
that France should ever again be the home of a great 
Catholic people. To many outside the Church it 
seemed as though Napoleon’s imprisonment of the 


18 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Pope meant the death knell of the power of the 
papacy and the end of world influence for the Cath- 
olic Church for all time. At the beginning of the 
nineteenth century the Catholic Church seemed al- 
most a thing of the past still hanging on to life 
but inevitably dying and surely destined to a very 
proximate decadence that made any future greatness 
out of the question and any prospective influence 
outside of the Latin countries, particularly, almost 
utterly visionary. 

Of the Latin countries Spain was so decadent that 
her Catholicity could not be presumed to have any 
influence outside of that country. The Napoleonic 
troubles had precipitated all sorts of unfortunate 
tendencies which, on the background of the French 
Revolution, seemed to assure the sapping of faith in 
Church life. Spain was gradually losing her South 
American colonies and it seemed only a question of 
time until the revolutionary habit acquired by the 
Spanish and Portuguese Americans would do away 
with any influence the Catholic hierarchy might have. 
Germany was hopelessly Protestant and gradually 
becoming rationalistic. Austria still clung to the 
Church but consisted of such disparate elements — 
under its imperialistic government that it seemed 
destined to approaching dissolution and with it 
would disappear the one important European power 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 19 


that still gave its unquestioning adhesion to the 
Pope. Italy was helplessly divided into smaller 
political units, the important northern portion under 
hopeless Austrian tyranny. England, during the 
eighteenth century, had lost most of its religious 
faith and its Anglican Church life was in sad de- 
cadence. While there was some initiative left in 
the non-Conformists they were drifting farther and 
farther away from anything like Catholicity. 
‘Toward the end of the first quarter of the nine- 
teenth century the reaction toward the Catholic 
Church began very strongly. The return of the 
monarchy and the reéstablishment of the French 
hierarchy revealed a readiness on the part of the 
French people to take up Catholicity once more in 
a way that could scarcely have been believed. ‘Then 
came the rise of a group of brilliant Frenchmen 
who accomplished wonders in touching the hearts 
and souls as well as the minds of the Frenchmen of 
the rising generation. I need only mention such 
names as Montalembert, Lacordaire, the unfortu- 
nate Lamennais and Ozanam, all of whom, with the 
exception of Lamennais, were within ten years of 
the age of Father McCloskey, to give some idea of 
the wind of the spirit that was abroad among his 
contemporaries, and how likely he was to be touched 
by it not only during his time abroad but afterwards 


20 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


because of familiarity with European conditions. 
Montalembert’s St. Elizabeth of Hungary, which 
was the leading factor of a great literary revival of 
understanding of the Middle Ages, was published 
while Father McCloskey was abroad. It was pre- 
cious to be alive but it was glorious to be young and 
with one’s heart deeply immersed in the interests of - 
the Catholic Church at that time. 

The French reaction awakened the English across 
the Channel and brought about the Oxford move- 
ment, the first deep stirrings of which must have 
been already very noticeable during the time while 
Father McCloskey was in England and Ireland. 
Newman’s “Lead Kindly Light’? was written just 
before Father McCloskey left America but was 
coming into attention during his stay over there. 
The “Tracts for the Times’’ were just attracting 
very wide attention during the years while Father 
McCloskey was in Europe. His friend, Professor 
Wiseman, was made bishop in partibus with the 
English mission in prospect in 1840, that is within a 
very few years after Father McCloskey returned. 
It is easy to understand how deeply he was pene- 
trated by the feeling that there was a great new 
future for the Catholic Church just ahead and that 
nowhere might this be looked for as more likely to 
reap a very great success than in his own native 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 21 


country, America, where the freedom of religion 
guaranteed by the Constitution had already proved 
so favorable for the establishment of the hierarchy 
and the organization of the Church free from politi- 
cal or governmental influences of any kind. It was 
in this temper of mind that Father McCloskey must 
have returned to America to take up his work in 
the ministry. 

Cardinal Farley, in his Life of Cardinal McClos- 
key, has dwelt on the high points of this reaction so 
well that it would be presumptuous for any one else 
to try to tell the story, especially in the amount of 
space that can be given to it in a sketch of this kind. 
He said, “‘A spirit of renewed loyalty to the Church 
was strongly moving European centres of thought. 
Lacordaire had in 1835 begun his Notre Dame 
‘Conferences,’ which commanded the attention of all 
France and drew around his pulpit the skeptical 
youth of Paris; Dr. Wiseman, as rector of the Eng- 
lish College in Rome, was giving his ‘Lectures on 
the Connexion between Science and Revealed Re- 
ligion,’ which gained him the ear of all England; 
Déllinger by the first and second parts of his History 
of the Church, Gorres by his Christian Mysticism, 
and Mohler by his Symbolism had begun to fix the 
attention of Germany on the power of the Church 
to hold men of ability. The Catholic Movement 


22 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


under Newman had begun at Oxford; Montalem- 
bert had succeeded in forming a Catholic party in 
France, with himself as president. Father Mc- 
Closkey’s intimate knowledge of all these forces, 
focussed as they were in the Eternal City, gave him 
ever after a broader and more intelligent interest 
in the affairs of the Church, especially in Europe, 
and made his forecast of things singularly accurate 
invarter lites: 

All this fine opportunity came to Father Mc- 
Closkey in the very impressionable years just under 
and over twenty-five and when he had just been 
prepared by years of classical study to take in new 
impressions. ‘Those who knew him in after life in- 
timately and who appreciated how interesting a con- 
versationalist he was and how broad were his 
sympathies for all European questions, had brought 
home to them the effect of this graduate European 
work. He knew at first hand a great many things 
that enabled him to understand movements that 
occurred in Europe, the real significance of which 
would be quite hidden from those who had not had 
opportunity for his experience. J doubt if more 
than a very few men of his day here in the United 
States, a dozen or a score at most, and those mainly 
who had had diplomatic opportunities in Europe, 
were so broadly and culturally educated as Father 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY mg 


McCloskey on his return. Quite needless to say 
the effect of this education was noteworthy all dur- 
ing his life and made him a very enjoyable com- 
panion for those who were brought closely in touch 
with him. There was crying need for such a man 
in the American Church and Father McCloskey 
came almost as a direct response to the unuttered, 
because as yet unrecognized, demand for refinement 
and culture as well as zeal and loyalty among the 
Catholic clergy in the United States. 

From the happy, satisfying, scholarly period of 
Roman absorption of the humanities, with all the 
satisfaction of mind and heart that that implied for 
a man of his gentle studious character, Father 
McCloskey, on his return to America, was trans- 
ferred to a position that at once demanded all the 
power of character, yet of sympathy for others, 
of which he was possessed. ‘Though he had had 
no experience as a pastor and was after all well 
under thirty years of age, when most men are con- 
sidered to be scarcely mature enough for a respon- 
sible administrative position, he was made the 
parish priest of one of the most important parishes 
in the archdiocese of New York, that of St. Joseph’s, 
on lower Sixth Avenue. If the parish had been in 
perfectly normal condition the burden that it im- 
posed would have been only trying because of the 


24 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


immense number of practical details which had to 
be overseen, as a substitute for the academic occu- 
pations which for so long had been the principal 
occupation of Father McCloskey’s mind. The 
parish was as a matter of fact, however, very far 
from being in a normal condition. Indeed it could 
not have been much worse and the young studious- 
minded pastor was rudely thrust upon some very 
delicate and important problems. 

Old St. Joseph’s parish was at the time one of 
the strongholds in New York of that series of 
abuses in the history of the American Church in the 
first half of the nineteenth century known as trus- 
teeism. This was a form of church government 
which had gradually arisen in America in the early 
days of Catholicism in the United States partly as 
the result of the spirit of independence which re- 
publican institutions fostered among the citizens 
and partly because of the example set in the matter 
by the status of other churches in which this form 
of government was the rule. In this form of church 
government the trustees were elected by the church 
congregation. [hey held the church property in 
their names, they paid the pastor’s salary and also 
that of his assistants, they had the decision with 
regard to church affairs and property extension. 
In a word all the financial arrangements of the 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 25 


church devolved on them, leaving to the pastor 
only the spiritual duties of the care for his flock. It 
is not surprising that under the circumstances the 
trustees expected to have certain rights of final 
judgment with regard to the pastor they should 
have and the conditions of his pastorate, and espe- 
cially the termination of it if he did not fit in with 
their ideas of what a pastor should be, or if on the 
other hand it seemed good to the bishop for appro- 
priate reasons to transfer the pastor to some other 
charge. 

The result of this situation was the development 
of a very definite tendency to dictate not only to 
the pastor but also to the bishop in matters dis- 
tinctly belonging to their spheres of influence, and it 
is not surprising that before long a great many 
abuses crept in. This anomalous condition so far 
as church government in the Catholic Church is 
concerned had been allowed to grow up in the early 
days because of the unsettled church conditions in 
this country. Very often a group of people to whom 
no pastor had been assigned as yet, nor could be 
because of the scarcity of priests, came together and 
organized a congregation, assessing themselves for 
the acquisition of the church property and the build- 
ing of the church and inviting the bishop to supply 
them with a priest as soon as and as far as that 


26 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


might be feasible. Good work begun out of the 
purest of Christian zeal however sometimes degen- 
erated into very personal jealousy and the forma- 
tion of cliques in the congregation led to unfortunate 
divisions and to no little insubordination to Church 
authority. 

St. Joseph’s afforded a striking example of the 
extent to which abuses might be carried in connec- 
tion with this system of trusteeship. When Father 
McCloskey was appointed pastor of the church the 
trustees of St. Joseph’s refused to receive him, de- 
manding to have a pastor of their own choice in- 
stead of this young man who had had no experience 
as a pastor and whose life had been spent in 
academic obscurity up to this time. When they were 
told that the bishop must have the right to appoint 
the pastor and that they must receive the one he 
had chosen for them, a great many of them refused 
to attend church. Many of the members of the 
congregation gave up their pews and as Father 
McCloskey used to tell, when later on he was car- 
dinal, Sunday after Sunday for many months he 
preached to almost empty benches. It is easy to 
understand what a serious disappointment at the be- . 
ginning of his practical ministry it must have been 
for this young priest, full of the spirit of the Church, 
after his years at Rome to find that sometimes there 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 2] 


were not a dozen of persons in the church on Sun- 
day. As their pastor he was responsible for the 
souls of his congregation and it must have been the 
source of many an anxious moment to have him 
brought face to face, week after week, with the 
bitter obstinacy of his flock. Personally he had 
nothing to do with the unfortunate state of affairs 
except in so far as his shortcomings as a young 
man with no experience made him unacceptable 
to the trustees. He was sent by the bishop and 
and must do his work as best he could, but it was 
deeply discouraging to have no chance to influence 
his flock. His feelings would be very different from 
those of the pastors in non-Catholic churches for 
he knew that the members of his congregation were 
well aware that the violation of the Church rule with 
regard to attendance at Mass on Sundays made 
them seriously at fault before the bar of their own 
consciences. [heir attendance at church was not a 
voluntary but a necessary duty as Catholics. 

The church finances were entirely in the hands 
of the trustees and they refused to pay him a salary. 
This made the question of his support a rather diffi- 
cult matter. The board of trustees resented par- 
ticularly that this young, delicate priest, who looked 
so much younger even than his years, should have 
been sent to them as their pastor, for they consid- 


28 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


ered themselves, and not without reason, as the 
representatives of one of the most important par- 
ishes in the diocese. Many invidious remarks were 
made and most of them of course were carried to 
the object of them, about his lack of suitability or 
usefulness for his position. While the ‘crime of 
being a young man”’ is not a serious one and is quite 
naturally wiped out by the course of time itself, this 
is one of the objections to his activities that is likely 
to touch a young man’s feelings almost more than 
anything else. Remarks were even made for the 
benefit of the pastor—and of course carried to him 
—in which the trustees went so far as to say that 
his eloquent and elaborate sermons, which proved so 
interesting to the few who heard them that the fame 
of them went abroad throughout the parish, were 
not really composed by the young man himself but 
by some older and abler head in compliance with 
the determined policy of the bishop to impose this 
young man on them. 

Father McCloskey was young in years and 
younger in experience and even more youthful in 
appearance, but he had the tact and discretion that — 
an older man might envy. ‘To all these rumors he 
turned a deaf ear and was as if he had heard nothing 
so far as any sign of even the slightest irritation 
as a consequence of them was concerned. He never 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 29 


made even the most distant of passing allusions to 
all that he heard not only in his church announce- 
ments but even in his conversation with members 
of his congregation. Talebearers were not wel- 
comed and soon stopped coming. He was careful 
to show no sign in private conversation of any dis- 
turbance of feeling on his part. He wanted to be 
the good shepherd of all his flock and he was, if 
anything, more kind to the erring ones than to the 
others. Indeed, that was the only sign that they 
could have had that he knew of some of their ac- 
tivities in opposition and the expressions they used 
concerning him. Most of his flock were Irish and 
when in danger of death the pastor was sent for 
and always came promptly. Over and over again 
when affliction came to those who had been most 
obstinate in their opposition, he proved to be the 
gentlest and kindliest of sogarths in their regard. 
It required patience of a high order and persistence 
in what was really a saintly policy but gradually he 
won and even the most obdurate of his opponents 
came to recognize that their youthful-looking pastor 
was a real father in God to them and a Christian 
nobleman whose thought was all for them and not 
for himself. 

St. Francis de Sales said that a drop of honey 
draws more flies than a barrel of vinegar and that 


30 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


saying was exemplified very strikingly in old St. 
Joseph’s parish in regard to their gentle, sweetly- 
tempered young pastor. Slight and frail though he 
was in physical make-up, he was known by all those 
who were best acquainted with him for his deter- 
mination of character and he persisted unremittingly 
in his work of winning over especially the recal- 
citrant members of his flock by his gentleness and 
patience. Those who knew Father McCloskey 
best were sure that he would win the contest with 
his parishioners because they knew that there was 
literally no end to his abiding persistence of char- 
acter in doing whatever he had made up his mind was 


the right thing. A college companion at Emmits- 7 


burg who had known him very well for many years 
summed up the whole situation at St. Joseph’s and 
the inevitable outcome of it when he said succinctly, 


but very strikingly, ‘Father McCloskey will not 


fight but he will conquer.” The pastor set a mag- 
nificent example of that charity which is kind and 
patient and mild and gentle and long-suffering and 
which seeketh not its own and that has never been 
known to fail ultimately in its purpose of winning 
souls to the right. 

Those who were most bitterly opposed to him 
when he first came to St. Joseph’s became his firmest 
supporters in the course of time and the young 


ee ee ee eee _ 


= 


Ee 


ae ey ee 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 31 


priest, after even a few years, came to be looked 
up to by his large flock with a reverence that is 
usually only accorded to the man whom the snows of 
years have crowned and whom a series of genera- 
tions of parishioners have had brought close to 
them at all the precious crises of family life—deaths 
and births and marriages—that make the relations 
between the pastor and his people so intimate as to 
represent spiritual affinities which exceed in signifi- 
cance even the natural ties of relationship. Toward 
the end of his life when Cardinal Archbishop of 
New York and when his long experience of hu- 
manity would seem to have afforded him many 
opportunities for happiness in the accomplishment 
of great work in the hierarchy, Cardinal McCloskey 
used to say that the years which followed those 
first severe trials at old St. Joseph’s, when it seemed 
for a time as though he might be unsuited for the 
practical ministry of the Church, were actually the 
happiest of his life. His flock had tried him as 
by fire but his winning of them over had made him 
realize the wonderful power that the Church has 
over the hearts of the people and how much can be 
accomplished by its ministrations better than all his 
years of study and even his knowledge of the history 
of the Church for nearly 2,000 years as it had been 
brought home to him in Rome. 


22 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


With his success as a pastor at St. Joseph’s, 
making it very clear how valuable a man Father 
McCloskey would make in the fulfillment of pas- 
toral duties, his religious superiors had not for- 
gotten that Father McCloskey was also one of the 
best-educated men in the diocese with a well-stored 
mind and an enthusiasm for teaching that would 
make him more valuable in college work than prob- 
ably in any other position. Though he was only 
thirty-one years of age, Father McCloskey was 
selected by Bishop Hughes as the first president of 
St. John’s College, Fordham. After the fire at 
Nyack, Fordham had been chosen as the site of the 
diocesan college which Bishop Hughes wished to 
create. The foundation there has continued ever 
since and has now become Fordham University 
under the Jesuits, with many thousands of students, 
the alma mater of a large number of men who have 
occupied positions of influence in Church and State 
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

It is a sign of what a scarcity of laborers there 
was in the field that even when he became president 
of the new college Father McCloskey still retained 
his pastorate at St. Joseph’s, though almost needless — 
to say, travel from lower Sixth Avenue out to Ford- 
ham, some ten miles, was a rather slow process in 
those days and this of itself must have made the 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 33 


new position rather time-taking and strenuous, espe- 
cially during winter weather. 

His interest in scholarship made him the most 
suitable for that position and his love of young 
folks, and especially of boys, made him an ideal 
rector, as he was called in those days, for the new 
college. He did much in its earliest years to assure 
the success of the institution. All his life he con- 
tinued to maintain a very special interest in it so 
that Fordham came to be looked upon as one of the 
leading Catholic colleges of the country. 

Three years after Father McCloskey’s appoint- 
ment to the rectorship of Fordham, when Bishop 
Hughes asked for an assistant bishop to help him 
bear some of his immense diocesan burdens, Pope 
Gregory XVI selected Father McCloskey for the 
position, and on March 10, 1844, he was conse- 
crated Bishop of Axiere and Coadjutor of New York 
with the right of succession. At this time the dio- 
cese of New York included the whole state of New 
York and most of New Jersey. In those days of 
extremely difficult travel it is easy to understand 
what a difficult problem was before the Bishop of 
New York in the effort to care for his flock. With 
two bishops that work would be divided, while yet 
for each of them the proper visitation of the diocese 
remained an almost impossible task. ‘The perilous 


34 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


state of the primitive roads of that time in con- 
junction with horse travel made it almost impossible 
to fulfill all the duties which the bishops felt in- 
cumbent upon them. Those problems and tasks were 
increasing all the time. The population was grow- 
ing rapidly and this was adding to the difficulties. 
Bishop McCloskey gave himself to his new duties 
whole-heartedly and must have been of immense 
assistance to Bishop Hughes. ‘The steady immigra- 
tion from Ireland was increasing the number of 
their flock by leaps and bounds so that the New 
York diocese was probably growing more rapidly 


than any other diocese in the Catholic world at that. 


time. 

In 1847, the steady growth of the Church in New 
York State necessitated the division of the New 
York diocese into three dioceses, the two new Sees 


being located at Albany and Buffalo. Bishop Mc- ; 


Closkey had been installed as Coadjutor Bishop of 
New York, which was now become the most im- 
portant diocese in the United States. He had the 
right of succession in that great diocese and un- 
doubtedly any insistence on his part on this right 


would have secured him in this position. It is an — 


index of his unselfish character, however, and of his 
earnest wish to devote himself to what he thought 
best for the Church that he resigned his coadjutor- 


ie —— eo 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 35 


ship of New York to take up the organization of the 
new diocese of Albany, May 21, 1847. Here he 
had nearly half the state of New York in area 
under his jurisdiction in a diocese extending over 
30,000 square miles. In the whole region there 
were less than twenty-five churches and but twenty- 
four priests. The Catholics who had to be served 
by these were widely scattered, most of them poor 
working people, many of them immigrants just get- 
ting settled in the country, and they numbered sixty 
thousand. The conditions particularly in the winter 
time, when the temperature was often thirty or more 
degrees below zero in the northern part of the state 
in what was then called the North Woods, now the 
Adirondacks, made the tasks of the priests extremely 
difficult. 

What Bishop McCloskey achieved in Albany in 
what must have often seemed to him the most dis- 
couraging circumstances and in the midst of physical 
labors and hardships of travel under the most rigor- 
ous weather conditions, all of which seemed destined 
inevitably to break down his frail frame before his 
appointed time, exemplified very well the spirit of 
the man, his utter forgetfulness of himself, and his 
life purpose of devoting himself to the benefit of 
others. It was wonderful how much he was able 
to accomplish. His preéminent success, for he left a 


36 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


name that is in benediction in Albany ever since— 
and he organized that diocese very wonderfully 
—demonstrated beyond peradventure, that he was 
indeed the man for higher positions, a worthy 
churchman with his heart in his work. 

His successor, Cardinal Farley, said of him and 
his work in Albany: “After seventeen years of his 
administration of Albany he left behind as a result 
a noble cathedral, eighty-four priests, one hundred 
and thirteen churches, eight chapels, forty-four 
minor stations, eighty-five missionaries, three acade- 
mies for boys, one for girls, six orphan asylums, 
fifteen parochial schools, and St. Joseph’s Provin- 
cial Seminary, Troy, which he, with Archbishop — 
Hughes, was largely instrumental in securing and 
equipping. He also introduced into the diocese sey- 
eral religious communities, amongst others, the 
Augustinians, the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Capu- — 
chins, and Oblates. For the care of the young girls 
under his charge, he provided by inviting the Re- 
ligious of the Sacred Heart to Kenwood-on-the-Hud- 
son; the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy and 
the Sisters of St. Joseph; and for the boys the 
Christian Brothers were also introduced.” | 

In January, 1864, John Hughes, who in 1842, 
had become the Bishop, and in 1847 the first Arch- 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 37 


bishop of New York, died, and the question of his 
successor came to be one of the most important 
problems for the Catholic Church in America. 
Though Baltimore was the primatial see it was felt 
that New York, as the largest city in the country, 
should have as its archbishop the most representative 
clergyman of the time. Archbishop Hughes’ per- 
sonality had raised the Archiepiscopal See of New 
York to a very high place of public esteem in the 
United States. In his controversy with Brecken- 
ridge he had attracted countrywide attention. The 
diplomatic mission which Lincoln had seen fit to con- 
fide to him in order to dissipate, if possible, some of 
the danger that there seemed to be of European 
states combining to recognize the belligerency of the 
Confederacy and thus be free to supply them with 
munitions of war and other needed materials, had 
made the Archbishop of New York a power in the 
country. His magnificent administration of his 
great archdiocese and especially what he had accom- 
plished in order to bring under his jurisdiction in 
formal way and provide proper church accommo- 
dations for the immense number of immigrants who 
after the famine found their way into New York, 
added to his prestige and was recognized particu- 
larly by the Church authorities. All this had made 
his archdiocese one of the largest in the point of 


38 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


membership in the Church anywhere in the Catholic 
world. | 
Here was a post that almost any man might be 
glad to be chosen for, since it represented practically 
the most important position in the Catholic Church 
in America. A great many people were of the opin- 
ion that the logical appointee for the Archiepiscopal 
See of New York was Bishop McCloskey of Albany. 
He had already been named as the coadjutor bishop 
with the right of succession to that see and he had 
resigned that right solely in order to take on his 
shoulders the heavy burden of organizing the new 
diocese of Albany. It seemed as though a man who 
had thus given up his claim to this lofty post just 
because he saw the opportunity for hard work for 
the Church should now have accorded to him the 
high dignity voluntarily foregone but that called 
loudly for him after the death of Archbishop — 
Hughes. | 
Bishop McCloskey himself seemed to be almost 
the only one who did not have that feeling. He 
had spent years, and as he felt his best forces, in 
accomplishing the organization of the Albany dio- 
cese. In spite of the practically universal call of 
the priests and people of the archdiocese as well — 
as the formally expressed wish of the bishops of the 
country, Bishop McCloskey felt that he should not 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 39 


be asked to assume the burden of the archbishopric 
no matter how enviable the dignity might be. He 
was as yet only fifty-four years of age, but he had 
never been strong and he feared the giving out of 
his powers and he felt that some younger, more 
active and more capable man than himself should be 
promoted to the archbishopric. 

For those who are inclined to think that surely 
ambition must rule the lives of clergy as it does 
those of laymen, and that the opportunity to secure 
a high dignity of this kind must certainly break 
down any feelings of humility a man may entertain, 
Bishop McCloskey’s conduct on this occasion should 
prove illuminating. While human motives must in 
his case, as in that of other men, have had a very 
strong appeal, so far from being allowed to rule his 
conduct, they were thoroughly suppressed and the 
bishop himself made every effort to prevent his ad- 
vancement to the post that seemed so well worth 
while coveting. There is a letter from the Bishop 
of Albany written to Cardinal Reisach, who was at 
the moment one of the most influential members of 
the Congregation of Propaganda at Rome, which 
shows how Bishop McCloskey tried to avert the 
coming of the dignity that seemed to be already 
looming over him. At that time the United States 
was so far as its Church status was concerned a mis- 


40 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


sionary country directly under the control of Propa- 


ganda. The officials of that Congregation had more 


to do with the naming of the new Archbishop of 
New York than any one else, for while the Pope 
actually named the appointee he did not do so with- 
out consultation with Propaganda and almost in- 
variably chose the one suggested by them. 

It is evident that this letter of Bishop McClos- 
key’s was written in the hope and with the deliberate 
purpose that he would be able to counteract any 
influences that might possibly be at work in Rome 
for his appointment as archbishop. He knew how 
much that appointment was desired for him over 
here in America, though of course his priests and 
people of Albany were very much disturbed over 
the thought of losing their beloved prelate. Bishop 
McCloskey was confident that his letter would dis- 
pel any tendencies there might be to transfer him to 
New York. After reading that letter there can be 
no possible doubt that the Bishop of Albany was 
eminently sincere in his desire to be allowed to re- 
main in his beloved diocese of Albany where his 
comparative obscurity was the surest warrant of 
peace and happiness for himself. Behind this mo- 
tive that might well have been considered selfish 
there were other and stronger motives that impelled 
him in the line of conduct that he adopted. He 


SE a eae ae 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 41 


feared that he would not be able to fill the higher 
position properly and he felt sure that there were 
others who could do ever so much better for the 
Church than he could possibly hope to do and his 
one idea was that the Church of Christ should bene- 
fit as much as possible and that, above all, his feel- 
ings should not be considered in the matter nor be 
allowed to stand in the way of the greater glory of 
God as he feared that they might. 

Bishop McCloskey wrote to Cardinal Reisach, 
the dear personal friend of his years at Rome who 
would understand, if anybody could, how candid and 
open of soul the Bishop of Albany was in his ex- 
pression—‘‘I write to implore your Eminence in 
case there should be any danger of my appointment 
or of my being transferred from Albany to New 
York, to aid me in preventing it, and to save me 
from the humiliation and misery of being placed in 
a position for the duties and responsibilities of 
which I feel myself both physically and morally un- 
equal and unfit. After having been appointed and 
consecrated coadjutor of the Bishop of New York, 
with the right of succession, I resigned both coadju- 
torship and right of succession to come to Albany. 
I then resolved, and still hold to the resolution, that, 
as far as it depended on any free will or consent of 
my own, I should never again return to New York. 


42 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Having been relieved from the prospect of suc- 
cession, I never thought of afterwards aspiring or 
being called to it. I speak only from the deepest 
sincerity of heart and from the strongest conviction 
of conscience when I say that I possess neither the 
learning, nor prudence, nor energy, nor firmness, nor 
bodily health or strength which are requisite for 
such an arduous and highly responsible office as that 
of Archbishop of New York. I recoil from the 
very thought of it with shuddering, and I do most 
humbly trust that such a crushing load will not be 
placed upon my weak and unworthy shoulders.” 

Fortunately for us we have a commentary upon 
this letter from one who knew Bishop McCloskey 
very well and whose own experience in life was such 
as to make his opinion of very great weight. 
Cardinal Farley, the second successor of Cardinal 
McCloskey in the archbishopric of New York and 
the second cardinal to occupy that See, in writing a 
sketch of Cardinal McCloskey for the Catholic 
Encyclopedia quotes the letter, or at least those por- 
tions of it which we have given, and says of it— 
‘This soul revealing letter tells that the Church still 
has within her hierachy men of the stamp of Chry- 
sostom, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, men who 
strained every nerve to avoid honors as much as 
men of the world strive for them.” 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 43 


In spite of the heavy burden thus placed on his 
frailty which in his declining years became more 
noticeable than it had been in the early days, Car- 
dinal McCloskey lived on to the ripe age of seventy- 
five. It has often been noted that small thin men 
are, barring accidents, likely to have a longer lease 
of life than their more sturdy brethren. It has 
been suggested that their souls have to inform less 
matter and that what they lose in intensity of mate- 
rial life they gain in its extension. It is surprising 
how often these small thin men prove to be capable 
of doing demanding work in positions of great re- 
sponsibility and yet live on well beyond the psalm- 
ist’s limit. 

It is very probable that at no time during life 
did Cardinal McCloskey feel that there was any 
guarantee of prolongation of existence for him for 
any lengthy period. Those who were near him said 
that they often had the feeling that when he made 
decisions looking to the future they were almost in- 
variably made with that delicate conscientiousness 
that would take possession particularly of a man 
who felt that life might have ended for him before 
the last effects of this decision of his would be felt. 
There is nothing like such a feeling to make a man 
unselfish and thoughtful only of duty as he sees it. 

During my years as a student at Fordham in the 


44 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


early eighties, I had the pleasure of seeing the good 
Cardinal Archbishop of New York of that time on 
a number of occasions. I had the privilege of being 
introduced to him on the occasion of our graduation. 
The fact that he had been the first president of the 
original college located at Fordham always gave 
him a fatherly feeling with regard to the institution 
and he seemed at his best among us at commence- 
ment time. There were many memorials at Ford- 
ham that must have brought back to him the days 
of his presidency there. ‘The old Rose Hill Manor, 
still used as the administration building (it is even 
yet in use), the previous manor house used as an. 
infirmary, with the tradition that it had been. Wash- 
ington’s headquarters and others of the older build- 
ings, greeted him from the old times. 

The gentle quiet of his ways, the charm of his 
personality, the sweetness of his voice, all made one 
feel that here, indeed, was a most precious char- 
acter. He was interested particularly in the younger 
boys and they represented a large part of the stu- 
dents in those days, for we had them from the 
earliest preparatory classes, studying even the ele- 
ments. The cardinal made it a point to get in 
touch with the youngest among them and greet them 
affectionately. Any excuse was sufficient to make 
him single out one of the very young boys for atten- 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 45 


tion and when a little group would gather round 
him it was easy to see how intensely pleased he was 
among them. One could not help but have the 
feeling that, like his Divine Master, nothing pleased 
him more than to be able to say, ‘Permit little 
children to come unto Me and prevent them not.” 
He himself retained always a simplicity of char- 
acter that made the younger folks take to him and 
find real pleasure in his visit to them. 

Archbishop McCloskey attended the Vatican 
Council (1871) at all its sessions and took a promi- 
nent part in its proceedings. He was a member of 
one of the most important commissions, that on 
discipline, and cardinals who came to know him at 
that time learned to appreciate his prudence and his 
wisdom. Indeed, it was during his stay in Rome for 
the Vatican Council that he made the definite im- 
pression upon the ecclesiastical authorities in the 
capital of Christendom which led to his elevation to 
the cardinalate. It has sometimes been said that he 
was opposed to the definition of the infallibility of 
the Pope which was the principal act of this Council, 
but those who recall his attitude are very emphatic 
in the declaration that what he opposed was the 
opportuneness of the definition at that moment. 
This was an opinion shared by many of the mem- 
bers of the Council and particularly by a number of 


46 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the American members of the hierarchy who were 
at the Council. The fact that within four years he 
was made a cardinal is of itself the best demonstra- 
tion of the fact that whatever his position with 
regard to infallibility was, it was felt that it was 
dictated by the sincerest motives. 

The reception of the news that he had been made 
cardinal was received in this country with universal 
applause not only from Catholics but also from 
Protestants. ‘This was probably the first piece of 
Catholic news, especially originating in Rome, to be 
so welcomed generally by our people. Americans 
felt that the honor conferred on the Archbishop of — 
New York accrued also to the prestige of the United 
States itself as a whole. There were, as was quite 
inevitable, some mutterings of bigotry and intoler- 
ance, but liberal-minded Protestants, as well as 
Catholics, felt that this high dignity had been con- 
ferred on a very worthy representative of American 
institutions and the first long step on the pathway 
away from old-time prejudice was taken. ‘There 
were many old-fashioned Catholics who were quite 
sure that an appointment of this kind from the Pope, | 
blazoned forth in all the papers of the country, 
would surely be the signal for an outburst of bigotry 
and intolerance such as had followed the reéstab- 
lishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England a 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 47 


quarter of a century before, but as Cardinal Farley 
said, in his sketch of Cardinal McCloskey, the ap- 
pointment actually proved “the proverbial wisdom 
of Rome’ in its relations with even distant countries. 
Cardinal McCloskey’s investiture took place in the 
old cathedral on Mott Street, April 27, 1875. The 
biretta was conferred by Archbishop Bailey, of 
Baltimore, who had been made delegate of the 
Apostolic See for this purpose. 

The finishing of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which 
had been begun by his great predecessor, Archbishop 
Hughes, was delayed during the war, for every 
effort was concentrated on the great struggle be- 
tween North and South. It was some years after 
the war before the work could be carried on with 
the industry that was desirable. While New York 
had a very large number of Catholics, a great many 
of them were poor and the accumulation of funds 
for the cathedral was slow. ‘The medieval cath- 
edrals, which are such magnificent structures to have 
been constructed in the small towns in which so 
often they were situated, were built by the labor of 
the people themselves to a very great extent and by 
the small contributions of those who had very little 
to spare, but who were willing to make sacrifices for 
the sake of a church worthy, as far as possible, of 
Emmanuel. St. Patrick’s Cathedral was largely 


48 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


built by similar small contributions. “The humorous 
remark of the Irish servant girl, who said to her 
friend, ‘‘Sure it’s my tin cints and your tin cints that 
has helped to build this great church,” had much 
more of truth than of humor in it, or rather the 
humor was due to the truth of it. 

This handsome building then, one of the most 
beautiful that New York has, and sometimes pro- 
claimed the handsomest ecclesiastical structure on 
the continent, as it surely was up to the beginning of 
the twentieth century, at least, is owed to the faith 
and willing sacrifices of poor people. Cardinal 
McCloskey devoted himself to the task of complet- 
ing it and nothing was too much for him to do in 
order to fulfill this purpose within his lifetime. He 
visited Europe several times in order to procure win- 
dows and altars for it, taking the best of advice and 
securing, especially when the taste of that time is 
considered in such matters, very marvelous results. 
After all a great change has come over the esthetic 
feelings of all classes during the fifty years that have 
elapsed since then. Churches were to a very great 
extent up to that time almost hideously obtrusive 
in their mere attention to utility and in their accumu- 
lation of adventitious and often cheap and tawdry 
ornaments. But in St. Patrick’s the beauty all came 
out in the structure itself and it was a triumph of 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 49 


old-time Gothic. In order to secure its completion 
Cardinal McCloskey finally gave everything that he 
possessed in the world and he had the consolation, 
on May 25, 1879, of dedicating it to the service of 
God. 

The last notable public appearance of Cardinal 
McCloskey was on the occasion of the celebration 
of the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination, January 
12, 1884. In reply to the addresses on that day 
he contrasted the scene of his ordination with that 
of this fiftieth anniversary. At the first there were 
a bishop, two priests and a few people in the church. 
Now the sanctuary was ‘‘filled with the bishops of 
my province and the faithful clergy of my diocese 
and the great cathedral is crowded to overflowing 
with my devoted people.”’ In his humility he depre- 
cated the praises that had been lavished on him by 
those who spoke on the occasion and he declared 
“with regard to the promotions that have followed 
one after another, I can only say that not one of 
them was ever sought by me.” 

The last public act of Cardinal McCloskey is 
one for which the Church in America, hierarchy, 
priests and people, cannot but feel deeply grateful 
to him for all time, for the effect of it continues 
to be felt in the benefits conferred by a great Ameri- 
can institution in Rome. The Italian government, 


50 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


which had taken over the papal property in Rome 
after the revolution, proceeded to the expropriation 
of educational properties of various kinds belonging 
to the Church. Among others even the North 
American College at Rome, which had been founded 
by the American hierarchy and was supported by 
their contributions, though it had been greatly 
helped by the liberality of the sovereign pontitis 
during the time of their temporal sovereignty, was 
threatened with confiscation by the government. 
Cardinal McCloskey laid the matter before Presi- 
dent Arthur, appealing for the protection of this 
institution as the property of American citizens. 
The Secretary of State, Mr. Frelinghuysen, by the 
direction of the President, brought the question of 
the American College to the special notice of the 
Italian government through the American Minister. 
The college was saved. Nothing else could have 
happened in strict justice, but in affairs relating to 
the Church and its property, justice has been almost 
the last word to have a meaning in a number of 
Kuropean countries even during this generation of 
ours which plumes itself so heartily on its sense of. 
justice. 

Cardinal McCloskey accomplished an immense 
amount of work that remains as the monument of 
his life as a prelate. At his death there were well 


CARDINAL McCLOSKEY 51 


above half a million of Catholics in his archdiocese. 
During his archbishopric the priests had increased 
from 150 to 400, the churches and chapels from 
85 to 229, the schools and academies had nearly 
doubled from 53 to 97, and the pupils in Catholic 
schools from scarcely more than 15,000 to nearly 
40,000. He founded the Catholic Protectory which 
must ever stand as a striking monument of his fore- 
sight in making provision for neglected children. 
Besides, he added largely to the number of institu- 
tions of various kinds for the care of the needy 
poor, hospitals, asylums and homes, as the growing 
wants of his people demanded. A great many of 
them were the poorest of the poor immigrants who 
came to this country in the most absolute need, 
driven out from Ireland by recurring famines, but 
who fortunately had in them the ability to rise and 
the memory of their own period of distress and 
want to prompt them to help the head of the arch- 
diocese in his work for the needy. 

Cardinal McCloskey was, as we have said, one of 
the most scholarly men of his time. Those who 
knew him the best, however, thought not so much 
about his gifts of intellect, though these were un- 
mistakable, as his gifts of the spirit. His successor 
in both the archbishopric and the cardinalate said 
of him, “But all these endowments were as nothing 


a OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


compared to the beauty of his soul which was the 
seat of all those virtues that render a man acceptable 
before God and dear to his fellow-men. If we had 
to mention only one trait of character, we should 
select what perhaps was the most conspicuous, cer- 
tainly the most edifying—the admirable blending 
in him of dignity which repelled none, with a sweet- 
ness which attracted all, a rare blessing— 


Non bene conventunt nec in una sede morantur 
Majestas et amor. ... 


“In the soul of Cardinal McCloskey, where 
Christian virtue had solid roots, they co-existed in 
a wonderful manner. In him were coupled the 
majesty of a prince, which inspired no fear, but 
exacted the reverence of all, with the simplicity and 
amiableness of a child. Well may we say of him 
that he was ‘Beloved of God and men.’ ” 


JAMES, CARDINAL GIBBONS 
SECOND AMERICAN CARDINAL 
“First Citizen of the United States’ 


Our second American cardinal was a man who 
felt supremely thankful over what he considered 
the very fortunate circumstance—‘‘the luckiest act 
of my life,”’ as he once said—that he had been born 
in the United States, though some of his sisters 
and brothers before and after him in the family 
had been born in Ireland. For the sake of father’s 
health the Gibbonses, after moving to America from 
Ireland and settling down for some years in Balti- 
more, had gone back to the Irish homeland and re- 
mained there for some ten years. Cardinal Gib- 
bons was a great American churchman proud of 
his Americanism above everything else, and his life 
was devoted to making his fellow citizens better 
Americans just in so far as his efforts and the in- 
fluence of his Church, the great historic Church of 
Christianity, could accomplish that purpose. 

A distinguished professor of science in an Amert- 

53 


54 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


can university who was a member of the United 
States Food Commission in Belgium during the 
Great War, told in one of his articles with regard 
to the work that was done there, that when he 
first met Cardinal Mercier and looked up to his well 
above six feet of stature, he said to himself, ‘‘Here 
is a man.’ A year later, however, when he had 
seen how nobly this man could stand in support of 
his tottering country like Horace’s just man un- 
moved in the midst of what seemed a toppling 
world, thoughtful meantime for others but not for 
himself, and utterly regardless of personal danger, 
meeting the great Belgian cardinal once again he 
said to himself, ‘‘Here is a saint.’”’ Those of us 
who had the privilege of meeting Cardinal Gibbons 
and of knowing him even a little intimately, were 
likely to have produced in us a feeling very like 
this. Some one has defined a saint as a person 
who thinks first of others and only second of him- 
self or herself. “This would seem to leave out the 
prayers and self-denial that most of us are inclined 
to think of as indispensable for sainthood, but any 
one who has tried to practice the habit of thinking 
first of others and only second of himself, will very 
probably find how indispensable the other commonly 
accepted attributes of sanctity are. It was as one 
forgetful of self and thoughtful of others above 





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all, that those who knew Cardinal Gibbons best 
estimated him and his character. 

This seems the language of panegyric rather than 
of temperate biography, but even a brief sketch of 
the career of Cardinal Gibbons will, I think, make 
it clear how well he deserves even such strong ex- 
pressions as those which were so appropriately used 
for his great colleague in the cardinalate, the Cardi- 
nal Archbishop of Malines. 

The future cardinal was born in a small house 
in the cathedral parish of Baltimore in which in 
his later years as archbishop and cardinal he was 
to be one of the most striking figures in the coun- 
try. There were many vicissitudes of life in be- 
tween that at once demonstrated and developed his 
character. His earliest memory was at the age of 
three being lifted in his mother’s arms in order to 
see Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, 
pass by. His parents married in Ireland, Thomas 
Gibbons and Bridget Walsh, had come out to this 
country to better themselves and after trying Canada 
and finding the climate too hard, had settled in 
Baltimore. His father was a clerk in a shipping 
office but with the responsibilities of arranging the 
finances of the ships on his shoulders. He was so 
known for his exact honesty that there was a proverb 
in Baltimore ‘honest as ‘Tom Gibbons.’’ When 


56 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


James was about three his father fell ill with what 
was probably tuberculosis and it was thought that 
the air of his native country might benefit him, so 
he returned there. He lived on for some ten years 
and his eldest son, the fourth in the family, received 
his early education in Ireland * and it seems to have 
been very solid and thorough. 

On the death of his father, his mother, far from 
being prostrated after the long unsuccessful struggle 
for her husband’s life, felt that now she must be 
both father and mother to her children. She was 
convinced that the family would have better oppor- 
tunities for life in America, so she planned their 
return. She was a brave woman of indomitable 
character, so that even the crossing of the Atlantic 
in the winter time in one of the small vessels of 
that day did not deter her from securing a better 
environment for her children just as soon as she 
could. ‘The crossing took eight weeks and they 


* Cardinal Gibbons, as every one knew, had a very tender spot 
in his heart for Ireland and the Irish; though he was proud to 
have been born in the United States, he felt toward Ireland almost 
as if it were his native land, because it had been the birthplace 
of his father and mother. He once called my attention to the fact 
that the same family names occurred in both our families, for his 
grandfather on his mother’s side had been James Walsh, and his 
mother’s name, like that of mine, was Bridget, and as both families 
came from County Mayo in Ireland, they were probably of the 
same stock originally. This undoubtedly made a more confiden- 
tial status between us on our comparatively rare meetings than 
would otherwise have been the case. Some of the personal ele- 
ment thus introduced may be reflected in parts of this sketch. 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 87 


were sorely tried, but within a few days after their 
landing they were all ready for work in the new 
country. Recalling their disturbing experiences with 
the cold in Canada this time they landed and set- 
tled in New Orleans. Hard work was necessary 
for the benefit of the family now and school days 
were over. But so far was this from preventing 
real education that as a matter of fact the next 
few years of hard work for the support of his 
mother and the family, the future cardinal often 
said were the most precious years of his develop- 
ment of intellect and of character. 

Justice Joseph Daly of the Supreme Court of 
New York once said to me that he thought the 
best education that you can give a boy of fourteen 
or fifteen is to put his widowed mother on his 
hands to support. If there is anything in that boy 
it will come out and his love for his mother will 
help him to develop his powers to the greatest pos- 
sible extent. That was what happened to Judge 
Daly himself. when after the death of his father, 
his mother with himself and his brother Augustine 
moved to New York. They sold papers on the 
streets, went to school at night, and lifted them- 
selves up to be one of them among the most dis- 
tinguished jurists in New York, and the other the 
most successful theatrical producer in the country 


58 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


and almost in the world, without a smirch of any 
kind on his character. Education is not pouring 
in but bringing out and young James Gibbons took 
his courses in this mode of education with a widowed 
mother to support in New Orleans about the time 
the Dalys were taking advantage of the same 
precious mode of training in New York. 

James Gibbons proved to have distinct business 
ability; that fact was soon recognized and his em- 
ployer placed more and more responsibility on him. 
He would undoubtedly have made a very successful 
business man, but when he was just about twenty- 
one the Paulists, Fathers Hecker, Walworth and 
Hewitt, gave a mission in New Orleans. After 
hearing one of Father Walworth’s sermons James 
Gibbons felt himself called to devote himself to 
the service of God in the Catholic ministry. His 
younger brother was already making a success in 
commercial life and was thoroughly capable of sup- 
porting the family and so, though mother was loath 
to part with her eldest boy, with a true Irish 
mother’s heart, she brought herself readily to be 
reconciled to the idea of giving him to the Church. - 
Cardinal Gibbons’ relations to his family continued 
until the end of his life to be of the warmest. So 
far from losing him they had found him. All during 
life he was bound to them by ties stronger than 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 59 


ever because of his devotion to the service of the 
Lord. 

For his studies he was sent up to St. Charles Col- 
lege, located at Ellicott City, not far from Baltimore 
in Maryland. The difference between travel then 
and now will probaby be best understood from the 
fact that it took him sixteen days to make the trip 
by steamer up the Mississippi and the Ohio and 
across country from Wheeling to Baltimore, which 
as he said afterwards now takes scarcely twice six- 
teen hours. He was very successful in his studies 
in St. Charles and came to be looked up to as a 
model student. His education in Ireland had been 
so thorough though it might have been considered 
narrow by those in the modern time, who seem to 
think that breadth and superficiality of interests can 
make up for depth and thoroughness, that in two 
years he was able to complete the college course 
considered necessary at that time as preparation 
for the theological seminary. He himself would 
have preferred to stay at St. Charles longer for 
he was more hungry for knowledge than ambitious 
for rapid promotion in his life’s work. He was 
persuaded that the more he learned for the ground- 
work of his priestly training, the more effective his 
subsequent work as a priest would be. All his life, 
however, he remained a student and was very proud 


60 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


to say so, learning something not only every year 
but every month and almost every day, so that his 
graduate education made him the rounded scholarly 
man that he was toward the end of his life. 

Like Mt. St. Mary’s, Emmitsburg, where our 
first American cardinal, John McCloskey, went 
through some of the hard things as a youth that 
proved the making of his character as an older man, 
St. Charles College provided opportunity for simi- 
lar development of character for the second Ameri- 
can cardinal. Only a little comparative study of 
the two institutions would be needed to show that 
the conditions which existed as regards washing and 
bathing facilities and the provision of food were 
so nearly similar as to be practically identical in 
effectiveness as discipline for growing youth. 

St. Charles College was then housed in a single 
granite building which had recitation rooms, the 
professors’ rooms and the dormitory of the students 
all under one roof. ‘The dormitory was heated by 
a single large stove and it warmed the students who 
slept near it pretty well, but those out at the periph- 
ery of the room suffered severely from the cold. 
That first winter, 1855-56, was the coldest in Mary- 
land since 1817, according to the United States 
Weather Bureau records, and the average tempera- 
ture for the season was a little below the freezing 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 61 


point, nearly five degrees below normal. The 
thermometer was often at zero and the students 
had to break the ice in the water pitchers. For 
young Gibbons lately arrived from New Orleans 
the change was very hard. No wonder his health 
suffered somewhat under it, but he took high rank 
in his studies and was a leader in all his classes 
during his years there. 

After his graduation at St. Charles young Gib- 
bons was allowed to visit his family in New Orleans 
and on the way he met for the first time Bishop 
Spalding, then in Louisville, later the Archbishop of 
Baltimore, who was to give the future cardinal his 
first step on the ladder of promotion in the Church. 
The young ecclesiastical student seems to have pro- 
duced a very favorable and lasting impression. He 
returned to Baltimore in September to begin his 
studies at St. Mary’s Theological Seminary. Here 
he had the severe discipline of the Sulpicians in 
charge of the seminary as a training that was to 
prove very precious for life. Fifty years later he 
paid a high tribute to what he thought they had 
done for him. From his own declaration it is clear 
that to the training afforded by the Sulpicians at 
St. Mary’s it must be considered that the American 
Church owes the wonderfully zealous, hard work- 
ing, self-forgetful clergymen who accomplished so 


62 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 
much for the spread of the Church under the diff- 


cult circumstances of those early days. Early in 
his seminary career Gibbons suffered from a severe 
attack of malaria which discouraged him very much. 
Not overstrong naturally this illness seemed as 
though it might prove a severe blow to his general 
health and strength. His own solicitude was lest 
the seminary authorities should find him unsuitable 
for the priesthood because of the state of his health. 
He felt that that would be the worst misfortune that 
could possibly befall him. He was willing to take 
all the risks of any possible injury to his health from 
the severe discipline to which he was subjected if 
he only had the chance to go on. | 

At St. Charles students and teachers had all been 
surprised at the exceptional versatility of his in- 
telligence. This continued to be characteristic of 
him all during his student career. At St. Mary’s 
Seminary the faculty described him as “having ex- 
ceptional facility in his studies to which he applied 
himself with great eagerness.” He had come from 
St. Charles with the encomium in French “Bon 
esprit; talent,’ of excellent disposition; talented; 
and this continued to be the judgment of him. All 
during his seminary course he continued to give the 
highest satisfaction. He was ordained to the priest- 
hood June 30, 1861. 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 63 


At the time of his ordination the Civil War was 
already in progress. Naturally Father Gibbons’ 
sympathies were with the southern people for Mary- 
landers would say that born in Baltimore he was 
southern by birth and he had lived afterwards in 
New Orleans, but his better judgment opposed any 
division of the Union and so he remained a Union 
man. He took no active side in the controversies 
so common all around him because as a follower 
of Christ he felt that it was his duty to do as much 
good as possible for all those with whom he came 
in contact. His position was often difficult but it 
came to be appreciated because of the goodness of 
heart there was behind it and the readiness to make 
himself all things to all men. 

Father Gibbons’ first charge in the ministry was 
as assistant to Father James Dolan, the beloved 
pastor of St. Patrick’s Church at Fells Point, Balti- 
more, in a poor, crowded quarter of the city, who 
was known as “‘the Apostle of the Point.” Father 
Dolan had built some years before a missionary 
church out at Canton and six weeks after Father 
Gibbons’ arrival his pastor sent him there to stay, 
saying in his own very simple, straightforward way, 
“Canton is a good school for a young priest.” Not 
long after this Father Gibbons was made the reg- 
ular pastor of this little Church of St. Bridget which 


64 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


he was particularly pleased with because it bore 
his mother’s name. Here he was destined to have 
his only parish work. There was no rectory and 
the pastor resided in a few small rooms that formed 
an addition to one end of the church and were to 
a great extent without light and ventilation. ‘The 
church was surrounded by farms and market gar- 
dens and only one dwelling was near. That was 
Mrs. Smyth’s, a» devoted Catholic, four of whose 
grandsons became priests. Mrs. Smyth sent him 
over his first meal on the Saturday evening when 
he arrived at Canton to begin his ministry. She 
cared for the housekeeping at the rectory for some 
time with the assistance of her daughters and sent 
one of her sons to sleep with him because it was 
so lonely and even a little dangerous, owing to the 
isolation of the place. 

The Know-Nothing movement had but recently 
passed. Strange as it may seem, Maryland, where 
religious tolerance had been first proclaimed, alone 
of all the United States had been carried by the 
Know-Nothing party. Bigotry rose almost to frenzy 
and there was still bitter intolerance in many places. 
This was followed by the still greater bitterness 
aroused by the Civil War which divided Baltimore 
into two hostile camps. The congregation of St. 
Bridget’s was very poor, consisting of laboring men 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 65 


from the Canton copper works and rolling mills 
with their families and some of the farmer folk. 
Father Gibbons in his tireless activity as a priest 
came to know every member of his flock. Many 
of them remained his personal friends until the 
end of his life, sure of a smile of recognition when- 
ever they met him. 

He was utterly careless of his own comfort and 
no sacrifice was too much for him if it accrued to 
the benefit of his flock. He gave up part of his 
scanty living quarters to provide a room in which 
meetings of various kinds might be held in con- 
nection with the church. This left only a small 
sleeping room for himself. Sometimes returning 
at night from pastoral calls he would have to pass 
through the assembled parishioners saying as he 
bade them a smiling good night, “I must go to 
bed now.”’ He even established a parochial school 
directly above his room and was willing to stand 
the noise from it in order to have the satisfaction 
of affording school opportunities for the young of 
his flock. 

No wonder that he attracted the favorable at- 
tention of his ecclesiastical superiors. As if he had 
not work enough, however, he voluntarily assumed 
charge of St. Lawrence Church on Locust Point, a 
mile across the Patapsco from St. Bridget’s. He 


66 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


had himself rowed across the river every Sunday 
morning to say Mass there, hear confessions, preach, 
baptize, and attend sick calls and then recrossed 
the river to Canton where he celebrated High Mass 
at half-past ten o’clock and preached again. All 
this had to be done fasting and it was generally 
about one o’clock before he broke his fast. There 
were no conveyances of any kind, his parish cares 
were wide flung; he learned to take long walks and 
continued the habit throughout life, and it is prob- 
ably to this fact that he owed his long life. For 
a time his parish duties were so demanding that 
it was feared he was going into a decline which 
was the euphemism for consumption in those days, 
but a careful examination by a physician showed 
that he had no lung trouble and he proceeded to 
build up and gain strength. His long life attested 
his constitutional vigor. 

He had many trying experiences with intruders 
of various kinds upon his lonely quarters. He 
would return to find in possession of them drunken 
soldiers, insane wanderers, improvident tramps and 
the like. Sometimes they threatened trouble but 
yielded to persuasion or well directed energy. ‘The 
future cardinal came out of the encounters success- 
fully because he was utterly fearless and his moral 
courage gave him a strength and command of him- 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 67 


self that enabled him to tackle successfully much 
stronger and more robust men. 

He had been some four years at Canton in the 
midst of all this hard work, when an invitation 
came to him from Archbishop Spalding to give up 
the pastoral care of his little flock at St. Bridget’s 
and become the archbishop’s private secretary. It 
seemed to him somewhat as though the call involved 
the turning away from his humble, fruitful field 
of labor in which he knew he was accomplishing 
much good for men and women who he felt needed 
him very much, to take up other easier work for 
which he was not sure that he was fitted. He 
used to say himself that the decision to accept the 
call cost him a sleepless night and that the one 
reason why he accepted was that given by Father 
Coskery, the vicar general of the diocese, to whom 
he went to beg him to exert his influence with the 
archbishop to allow him to remain at St. Bridget’s. 
The vicar general represented to him that it would 
be more in accord with his duty as a clergyman for 
him to leave himself in the hands of his superiors 
and consider that obedience was better than any 
sacrifice that he might make. After giving deep 
consideration to this aspect of the matter the future 
cardinal accepted the first step in promotion that 
came to him on his path upwards, writing that he 


68 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


was ready to consider the archbishop’s wish as the 
will of Providence in his regard. 

The first important work which came to Father 
Gibbons as the secretary of Archbishop Spalding 
was the preliminary organization of the Second 
- Plenary Council of Baltimore which convened in 
the Cathedral in October, 1866. Archbishop 
Spalding presided and Father Gibbons as assistant 
chancellor of the Council managed most of the 
details. This brought him in contact with the 
bishops and archbishops of the United States and 
they learned to appreciate his character, his capacity 
for work and his intense devotedness to his priestly 
duties. The Council recommended the formation 
of a number of new dioceses and one of the new 
jurisdictions was the Vicariate Apostolic of North 
Carolina. To this post Father Gibbons though 
but thirty-two years old and only five years out of 
the seminary was unanimously nominated by the as- 
sembled bishops. He himself was disturbed at the 
distinction thus conferred on him and feared that 
he would not be able to carry the burden success- 
fully. When he was consecrated he was known as 
‘the boy bishop.’”’ He proceeded to take up his 
diocesan work in what was probably one of the 
most unpromising dioceses in the world at that 
time with a zeal and enthusiasm that amply dem- 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 69 


onstrated the truth of the fact that the bishops 
had not been mistaken in their judgment of the 
youthful secretary of the Council. 

North Carolina, never very Catholic in popula- 
tion, had been overrun by the war, had lost many 
of its inhabitants, and now was in a very disturbed 
political condition during the reconstruction period. 
The sudden freeing of the slaves had disorganized 
labor, the state was dominated by “‘carpet-baggers,”’ 
as the politicians from the North who had come 
down to reconstruct the South were called, and 
there was political chaos. The new bishop’s living 
quarters were even more modest if possible than 
those at St. Bridget’s. He shared with Father 
Gross of Wilmington a lean-to built against the 
rear wall of the church, consisting of four little 
rooms, two on the ground floor and two upstairs. 
The floors were bare of even a rug. The furnish- 
ings were of the simplest. They slept on cots and 
ate from a table of rough boards, sometimes pre- 
paring their food with their own hands, because 
they had no funds with which to employ help. Even 
as it was, they gave away so much in charity of 
what came to them that they were often almost 
in want. ‘This was rude preparation for the cardi- 
nalate but undoubtedly the opportunities of coming 
in contact with all classes of men afforded by his 


70 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


episcopal labors in North Carolina made the fu- 
ture cardinal the man who was all things to all men 
in those precious years at the end of his life when 
he was probably one of the best known and best 
loved characters in the United States. ‘here are 
some things in human life that Providence manages 
ever so much better than our shortsighted human 
wisdom can understand until after-vision comes to 
us. 

The bishop made his way through the state over 
the roads often almost impassable in a rickety wagon 
of the type locally known as a “democrat.” Ac- 
companied by a young priest who drove, or a col- 
ored man, they occupied as much of this wagon 
as was not filled up with packages of sugar, flour, 
medicines and clothing taken along for the poor 
families with whom they might stop. ‘The parish- 
ioners finally became afraid that the wagon would 
break down leaving him stranded perhaps twenty 
miles or more from a habitation and they wanted 
to get him a new one, but the bishop said, “You 
can give me the money if you will for the Church 
but not for a vehicle for my own use.” 

He traveled throughout the state preaching and 
teaching, literally following the injunction of Christ 
“Go and teach” and made a great many friends 
of all classes, Protestants even more than Catholics 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 71 


because there were so many more of them. He 
preached in town halls, court-houses, Masonic lodge 
rooms, even Protestant churches. Sometimes the 
people were summoned by the Protestant church 
bell, the Protestant church choir assisted in the 
services, and the bishop standing in a Protestant 
pulpit read from a Protestant Bible but preached a 
Catholic sermon. Protestants particularly were at- 
tracted to him and found his message a revelation. 
It has been said, “the man I don’t like is the man 
I don’t know,” and many Protestants found that to 
know a Catholic even a little was very different 
indeed from thinking they knew all about him when 
their only authority was secondhand and prejudiced. 

So zealously did Bishop Gibbons pursue the visi- 
tation of his diocese that just as with regard to his 
parish of St. Bridget’s it was said of him that he 
came to know almost every Catholic in his flock, 
that is, practically every member of his church in 
the state of North Carolina, besides a very large 
number of Protestants. His journal of his tour is 
a mine of information in great detail of the Cath- 
olics everywhere throughout the state. Within the 
first four weeks he had traveled nearly a thousand 
miles and visited sixteen towns and mission sta- 


tions, confirmed a number of converts, baptized 


72 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


others and had come in contact with nearly five 
hundred widely scattered Catholics. 

His zeal did not abate and for some three years 
there was a ceaseless round of episcopal visitation. 
Then came a rest from his missionary labors while 
from September, 1869 to October, 1870 as bishop 
he was in attendance at the Ecumenical Council of 
the Vatican. It was a rest physically but not men- 
tally for he did not miss a single session and was 
an attentive listener at all the debates. As the 
youngest of the bishops whose youth and inexperi- 
ence imposed upon him a discreet silence, his faith- 
ful attendance gave him an education in Church 
affairs that was precious beyond words. After thus 
coming in contact with all the great ecclesiastics of 
the Church in the capital of Christianity he came 
back to his poverty-stricken diocese of North Caro- 
lina—for that is the only adequate term to use of 
it in the conditions that had developed after the 
war—more zealous than ever to preach to his flock 
the word of God as taught by the Church. 

Fis contact with Protestants in his missionry la- 
bors throughout North Carolina gave him as he 
said himself an insight into the point of view of 
those outside the Church that was extremely im- 
portant in putting him into sympathetic relations 
with the American people generally. His biogra- 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 73 


pher, Mr. Allen Sinclair Will, sums up the effect 
of these years in North Carolina very well. ‘He 
was not less a Catholic when he left North Caro- 
lina than he went there. In fact it seems that the 
foundations of his belief had been strengthened by 
opposition; but he had acquired a broad charity, 
a wide horizon of view, from which he never sep- 
arated himself in later life, and which stamped him 
preéminently as a friend of men of other creeds.”’ 
Above all it is well said that ‘“‘he conceded to well 
disposed persons not of his faith a desire equal 
to his own for the truths of Christianity. In all 
works inspired by the brotherhood of man he main- 
tained cordial contact and codperation with them.” 
The effect produced upon Bishop Gibbons during 
his work in North Carolina was of the greatest 
value in forming his character as an American and 
a Catholic and made him the representative Cath- 
olic American of the country when as the Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, the representative prelate of 
the United States in its oldest See he came to be 
also a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. 

It was this experience among the scattered Cath- 
olics in North Carolina while at the same time he 
was brought in contact with so many Protestants, 
that suggested to Bishop Gibbons the writing of 
the book, The Faith of Our Fathers. To many 


74 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


it might seem that his intensely difficult occupation 
in making the visitation of his diocese under cir- 
cumstances that would try any man’s soul, would 
prove so exhaustive of energy that almost the last 
thing in the world he would think of would be the 
writing of a book. Bishop Gibbons however knew 
that the principal reason why a great many people 
stayed outside of the Catholic Church, or were 
bigoted and intolerant with regard to her was that 
they knew almost nothing about her. They often 
thought they knew all about her but they had ob- 
tained their information from sources that were 
quite incapable of providing them with the truth. 
History as the Comte de Maistre said had been 
for three hundred years before his time, that is, 
ever since the Reformation, a conspiracy against 
the truth. Governments, monarchs, the nobility, 
which had benefited by the confiscation of religious 
properties at the time of the Reformation were 
anxious to hear anything and everything that de- 
famed the old Church and made them comfortable 
in their ill-gotten possessions. ‘here is nothing like 
the corrosive influence of graft to make people see 
things one-sidedly. | 
Cardinal Gibbons’ book The Faith of Our 
Fathers is one of the most widely distributed publi- 
cations in this country. When it was originally 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 75 


published it seemed to be too simple and almost 
obvious to have a very wide circulation, and yet 
the number of copies published continued to mount 
year after year until probably no book except the 
Bible has been issued in so many copies in this coun- 
try as this simple presentation of the position of 
the Catholic Church outlined by a master hand in 
the writing of a subject that he had deeply at heart. 
The edition now runs close to two million of copies 
and the book still has a remarkable sale which 
probably indicates that in the next ten years another 
million will be sold. 

Cardinal Gibbons wanted to attract people by the 
restatement of the doctrines of the old Church that 
had for nineteen hundred years known how to fit 
its modes of expression to the varying moods of 
mankind and, while always maintaining Christian 
dogmatic teaching intact, win them to an apprecia- 
tion of the simple beauties but still more of the 
sweet reasonableness of. Christianity. Cardinal 
Gibbons succeeded in doing this, in terms that would . 
catch the attention of our generation because they 
represented sincerely their way of looking at re- 
ligious ideas. ‘Tucker, the assistant editor of the 
Century Magazine for some forty years, in the 
course of his articles on his editorial memories which 
appeared serially in the Century last year and since 


76 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


in book form, declared that the most logical insti- 
tution in the world is the Catholic Church. It is 
this particularly that Cardinal Gibbons brought out 
in his book The Faith of Our Fathers and it is that 
which has made it so popular and enduring in influ- 
ence. 

In 1872 the diocese of Richmond was rendered 
vacant by the death of Right Reverend Bishop 
McGill. Bishop Gibbons was selected as the admin- 
istrator of the diocese and later as the successor 
of Bishop McGill. He continued to be for a time 
the Vicar Apostolic also of North Carolina. The 
bishopric of Richmond represented an advance in 
the hierarchy but the state of Virginia had been so 
overrun by the armies during the war and had 
suffered so severely as a consequence that the dif_i- 
culties of his new position were scarcely less than 
those which he had found in his vicariate. In Vir- 
ginia the dominant portion of the population was 
as Protestant as in North Carolina and while many 
of them were better educated, their prejudices were 
no less deep and the new bishop had to be a mis- 
sionary among them. Here, as in Richmond, we 
find such notes in his diary as “preached and con- 
firmed in a Methodist Church.’”’ Some of the notes 
show the conditions of his diocese better than any- 
thing that might be said. For instance, clergymen’s 


CARDINAL GIBBONS fui 


salaries $320, servants’ wages $333.50, organist’s 
salary $300. 

On the completion of the Cathedral of Balti- 
more, Bishop Gibbons was invited to preach the 
sermon at the consecration on May 25, 1876. No 
one could have been more appropriately chosen for 
that duty since he himself had been born not far 
from the cathedral and was now beginning to be 
recognized as one of the intellectual lights of the 
Catholic Church in America. His words on that 
occasion with regard to the relations of Church and 
State are the keynote of many expressions in his 
after life. They came very appropriately just as 
the United States was closing her first hundred 
years. 

He said: ‘‘Need it be repeated that the Church 
is slandered when it is charged that she is inimical 
to liberty? ‘The Church flourishes only in the beams 
of liberty. She has received more harm from the 
tyranny and oppression of kings and rulers than 
any other victim of their power. We pray for the 
prosperity of this our young country. In this, its 
centennial year, we rejoice that it has lived to show 
a sturdy life of liberty and regard for right and 
we raise the prayer, ‘esto perpetua.’ ”’ 

For five years Bishop Gibbons continued his 
zealous, immensely difficult work as Bishop of Rich- 


78 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


mond and Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina. Then 
in May, 1877, he was appointed Coadjutor to the 
See of Baltimore with the right of succession. He 
had been in close association with Archbishop 
Bailey, his predecessor, and from Richmond had 
made many trips to Baltimore to relieve the arch- 
bishop of routine episcopal duties. Several years 
before the archbishop had proposed to ask that 
Bishop Gibbons be appointed as coadjutor but his 
humility led him to ask the archbishop to delay the 
decision in the matter. As a result the appoint- 
ment as coadjutor came only just in time to be ef- 
fective, for within a few months Archbishop Bailey 
died on October 3rd, and Bishop Gibbons suc- 
ceeded him as the primate of the United States. 
Bishop Gibbons had continued after his appoint- 
ment to Baltimore to reside in Richmond because 
he felt that he could thus fulfill his duties better, 
even though some of the authorities in Canon Law 
suggested that this might raise difficulties with re- 
gard to his right of succession to the See of Balti- 
more. Bishop Gibbons brushed aside the techni- 
calities however and arranged matters so as best 
to facilitate the fulfillment of his obligations in the 
South and probably nothing is more indicative of 
his character than the situation which was thus cre- 
ated. It was typical of the man that his work for 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 79 


others should take precedence of any question of 
his own rights or claims. 

From 1877 (October 19) Archbishop Gibbons 
began the career which was to bring him to be the 
most respected churchman in the country. The man 
had reached his full intellectual and moral status 
as the result of the hard things that he had gone 
through so successfully as pastor of St. Bridget’s 
in Baltimore, Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina 
and Bishop of Richmond. He had been finely fitted 
for his great work of countrywide and even world- 
wide significance during the second half of life. 
Curiously enough his appointment as archbishop 
came just at the age of forty-three which exactly 
divides his life in two. In spite of this broader 
prelacy he was very much the archbishop of his 
own people and of Maryland. He came to know 
almost every foot of the soil of Maryland during 
his episcopal visitation of it and was particularly 
interested in the “lower counties’ of Maryland 
where Catholicity was first planted in English 
America. He had a remarkable memory for names 
and faces and he came to know a very large num- 
ber of Baltimoreans of all classes and he had a 
very wide acquaintance among all those who were 
deeply interested in Baltimore and its progress or 
in his native state of Maryland. 


80 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


It was not long before his duties as archbishop 
brought him into national prominence and the first 
step in that direction was a visit to President Hayes 
made on behalf of the Catholic Indians. President 
Hayes ‘‘acknowledged the superiority of the Cath- 
olic missionaries over all others in benefiting the 
Indians” (Cardinal Gibbons’ Journal, August 14, 
1878). He met President Hayes on several subse- 
quent occasions during his term of office and he 
wrote to Cardinal Simeoni, the papal secretary of 
state, “of the good feeling which now exists be- 
tween the civil authorities and the Church in this 
country.”’ On the occasion of the unfortunate shoot- 
ing of President Garfield, Archbishop Gibbons sent 
a letter around to his clergy asking them for prayers 
for the wounded President and sent a copy of this 
letter with a special note of condolence to Mrs. Gar- 
field. In the autumn of that same year Archbishop 
Gibbons issued what was probably the first official 
document from a prelate of the Catholic Church 
commending the national observance of Thanksgiv- 
ing Day to his flock. At that time Thanksgiving 
Day was much less nationally celebrated than it is 
now. ‘There was a certain flavor of Puritanism 
about it and the feeling existed in some minds that 
it had been established in New England with the 
idea of replacing in some way the old-fashioned 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 81 


festival of Christmas with the joyous festivities as- 
sociated by tradition with that feast day and which 
were so repugnant to Puritan ideas. What Cardi- 
nal Gibbons thus initiated has since become the com- 
mon custom of Catholic ecclesiastical authorities 
throughout the United States, and has lifted the 
Thanksgiving celebration on to a higher plane all 
over the country. 

The work for which Cardinal Gibbons will be 
best known in the history of the Catholic Church 
in America is the Third Plenary Council of Balti- 
more. It was suggested by Pope Leo XIII that a 
Plenary Council should be held. At first Arch- 
bishop Gibbons did not favor the idea for he feared 
that it would reawaken feelings of intolerance and 
bigotry as previous councils or public announce- 
ments with regard to the progress of the Catholic 
Church in this country had done before. When the 
Pope urged it, however, Cardinal Gibbons took up 
the task of organizing it and to him more than any 
other is due the wonderful success of it. It was 
because of this success that the Pope in recognition 
of his achievement made him a cardinal. He was 
appointed the Apostolic Delegate, that is the direct 
representative of the Pope, to preside over the de- 
liberations of the Council and made a most satis- 
fying presiding officer. It is easy to understand 


82 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


that when debaters such as Archbishop Ireland of 
St. Paul, Archbishop Spalding of Peoria, Archbishop 
Ryan of Philadelphia, Archbishop Hennessy of 
Dubuque, with Bishop Keene of Richmond—later 
president of the Catholic University of Washing- 
ton—and Bishop Gilmour of Cleveland, could not 
agree, it was no easy matter for the presiding of- 
ficer to find common ground on ever so many ques- 
tions on which all could stand. 

The influence of Archbishop Gibbons was par- 
ticularly noteworthy in the Council’s proclamation 
of the harmony which the assembled prelates felt 
deep in their hearts existed between the Catholic 
Church and the American people. ‘Two of the para- 
graphs of that proclamation, as they are to be found 
in the pastoral letter issued by the fathers of the 
Council at the conclusion of their sessions, express 
emphatically and unhesitatingly this great truth: 
‘We think we can claim to be acquainted with the 
laws, institutions and spirit of the Catholic Church, 
and with the laws, institutions and spirit of our 
country; and we emphatically declare that there is no 
antagonism between them. A Catholic finds himself 
-at home in the United States; for the influence of his 
Church has constantly been exercised in behalf of 
individual rights and popular liberties. And the 
right-minded American nowhere finds himself more 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 83 


at home than in the Catholic Church, for nowhere 
else can he breathe more freely that atmosphere of 
Divine truth, which alone can make him free. 
‘We repudiate with earnestness the assertion 
that we need to lay aside any of our devotedness 
to our Church, to be true Americans; the insinua- 
tion that we need to abate any of our love for our 
country’s principles and institutions, to be faithful 
Catholics. To argue that the Catholic Church is 
hostile to our great Republic, because she teaches 
that ‘there is no power but from God’; because, 
back of the events which led to the formation of 
the Republic she sees the Providence of God lead- 
ing to that issue, and back of our country’s laws 
the authority of God as their sanction—this is evi- 
dently so illogical and contradictory an accusation 
that we are astonished to hear it advanced by per- 
sons of ordinary intelligence. We believe that our 
country’s heroes were the instruments of the God 
of Nations in establishing this home of freedom; 
to both the Almighty and to His instruments in the 
work we look with grateful reverence; and to main- 
tain the inheritance of freedom which they have 
left us, should it ever—which God forbid—be im- 
periled, our Catholic citizens will be found to stand 
forward, as one man, ready to pledge anew ‘their 


lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.” 


84 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


The next great work for the Church that owes 
more probably to Cardinal Gibbons than to any 
other is the establishment of the Catholic Univer- 
sity. During the discussions in the Council of Balti- 
more of 1866 the idea of the foundation of a na- 
tional university for the training of priests and 
laymen was expressed. It was thought of rather asa 
hope than as anaim. The immediately active agent 
for the foundation of the university was Bishop 
Spalding of Peoria. He obtained from Rome the 
papal approval of a plan for organizing a university 
and this was taken up in 1884 by the Third Plenary 
Council of Baltimore and the establishment of a 
Catholic University was made part of the program 
of the hierarchy in the United States. Archbishop 
Gibbons became the head of the board of directors 
and remained its head until the end of his life, de- 
voting himself to the interests of the university with 
tireless efforts and with the whole force of his 
prestige as a churchman and as a nationally recog- 
nized prelate. The success of the Catholic Uni- 
versity and the magnificent results that have been 
secured in the training of very large numbers of 
American priests in the highest domain of culture 
has made it very clear that Archbishop Gibbons’ 
recognition of the power for good that it would 
surely prove was not mistaken but on the contrary 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 85 


represented one of those forecasts for good that he 
was so often able to make. 

With the success of the Council of Baltimore and 
the toundation of the Catholic University as ac- 
complished facts, it is not surprising that higher 
ecclesiastical preferment should be planned for the 
Archbishop of Baltimore. The death of Cardinal 
McCloskey (October 10, 1885) who had been for 
nearly ten years a member of the College of Cardi- 
nals left the United States, which had by this time 
become a very important portion of the Church, 
without a representative in the cardinalate. Every- 
thing pointed to Archbishop Gibbons as the logical 
successor to Cardinal McCloskey and Pope Leo 
XIII always particularly interested in the Church 
in America did not long delay the choice. Soon 
the news began to be bruited about that his ap- 
pointment as cardinal had already been determined 
upon at Rome and congratulations began to pour in 
on him. When the news first came to himself his 
first reaction was one of self-humiliation lest he 
should not be worthy of the honor and a prayer 
that somehow his shortcomings should be made up 
from on High. The words in his Journal are in- 
teresting in this regard as exhibiting the character 
of the man very clearly. “Should the report be 
verified, may God give me, as He gave to his 


86 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


servant David, a humble heart that I may bear 
the honor with becoming modesty and a profound 
sense of my own unworthiness; ‘suscitans de terra 
inopem et de stercore erigens pauperem ut collocet 
eum cum principibus populi.’” 

It is easy to understand that with a man so well- 
known as Archbishop Gibbons to be advanced to 
the cardinalate in a town like Baltimore which had 
taken him to its- heart and which delights in social 
pageantry, the occasion of conferring the cardinal’s 
hat was made an ovation. Nearly the whole Amer- 
ican hierarchy gathered in the city for the cere- 
mony. It was preceded by an ecclesiastical pro- 
cession such as had never been seen in America 
before. ‘There were hundreds of students for the 
priesthood in line and other hundreds of the reg- 
ular and secular clergy, members of the various 
religious orders, as well as the priests of the diocese. 
When a Catholic procession passes in Baltimore 
Protestants as well as Catholics on the streets are 
accustomed to uncover reverently and their homage 
to the new cardinal made this a particularly strik- 
ing part of the day’s celebration. As his biographer 
said: “The city prepared for a general féte and 
wrote the name of Gibbons on the roll of its most 
distinguished sons. Within the crowded cathedral 
sat many of the most distinguished men of his native 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 87 


city and state who had assembled to do him honor.” 
The formal addresses and his response on that day 
are among the precious documents of the history 
of the Catholic Church in America. 

There were some Catholics, including a certain 
number of priests and even bishops, who were in- 
clined to think that perhaps Cardinal Gibbons had 
departed from the spirit of the Church somewhat 
in this matter of interest in those outside the Church 
and that it would have been better for him to have 
confined his ecclesiastical attention more to the 
members of the Church. When the life of Cardinal 
Gibbons was translated into French, Cardinal Cer- 
retti, the apostolic nuncio at Paris, wrote a letter 
of commendation of the translation to the author 
in which he mentioned the fact that ‘‘some per- 
sons ... were not slow to accuse him (Cardinal 
Gibbons) of liberalism, of excessive condescension 
with respect to Protestants and who even went so 
far as to cast doubts on his teaching in these re- 
spects.”” The nuncio who himself had spent a num- 
ber of years in America as secretary to the Apostolic 
Delegate and who is usually considered to represent 
the mind of the Church in our generation as closely 
as any one in the hierarchy, praised very highly the 
great American cardinal and declared that he com 
sidered his relations with Cardinal Gibbons ‘‘one of 


88 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the greatest honors and one of the greatest joys” 
of my mission to the United States. . . . I shall 
never forget what a considerable influence he en- 
joyed nor how well he employed it in the service of 
the Church.” 

When Cardinal Gibbons went to Rome for the 
reception of “the red hat,” the traditional insignia 
of the cardinalate, he made it the occasion for some 
expression of the gfatitude of the American people 
outside of the Church for the distinction which had 
been conferred on American citizens. As he said 
very simply and straightforwardly, “I presume also 
to thank him (the Pope) in the name of our sep- 
arated brethren in America who though not shar- 
ing our faith have shown that they are not insen- 
sible—indeed that they are deeply sensible—of the 
honor conferred upon our common country and have 
again and again expressed their admiration for the 
enlightened statesmanship and apostolic virtues and 
benevolent character of the illustrious pontiff who 
now sits in the chair of St. Peter.’’ In Rome they 
said that the speech was characteristically American. 
Certainly it was very typical of Cardinal Gibbons 
and his ways. 

Cardinal Gibbons always felt that our conditions 
here in this country as regards the relations of 
Church and State were ideal for the Church in these 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 89 


modern times. When he was nearly fourscore he 
said in a sermon on Civil and Religious Liberty in 
the Baltimore Cathedral (December 7, 1913), 
‘The question arises, which is the best arrange- 
ment: the official union of Church and State or the 
mutual independence of both? I have nothing to 
say in regard to other countries, but our own 
friendly relation of Church and State without of- 
ficial union is best for us. 

“The Church has tried official union of Church 
and State and she has tried friendly independence. 
In adhering to the first system she has often been 
hampered and restrained in her Divine mission by 
the encroachment of despotic governments. As far 
as our own country is concerned, I prefer our Ameri- 
can system, where there are friendly relations and 
mutual codperation, where both move in parallel 
lines without clash or conflict, each helping the other 
in the mission it has from God... .” 

Very probably the best demonstration in the con- 
crete of the success of the relations between Church 
and State in America is to be found in the mutual 
good will and even intimate friendship which ex- 
isted between Cardinal Gibbons and the various 
presidents of the United States during the long 
years of his life as cardinal. With all of them 
there was an intimacy that made misunderstanding 


90 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


impossible. ‘These men had the most perfect con- 
fidence in each other’s absolute sincerity and good 
faith and shared the conviction that their one idea 
was the highest good of the American people as 
they saw it. 

The relations between President Cleveland and 
Cardinal Gibbons were very close. Both appreci- 
ated very highly the character of the other and 
each of them were gifted in this regard beyond the 
vast majority of men. In 1887 there occurred the 
jubilee of the ordination to the priesthood of Pope 
Leo XIII. President Cleveland wrote to Cardinal 
Gibbons to ask whether without impropriety it 
would not be possible for the cardinal to convey 
his congratulations and felicitations to the Holy 
Father on this happy event. Cardinal Gibbons at 
once called upon President Cleveland and expressed 
the hope that the President would not be content 
with a formal communication but would send some 
memento of his sentiments to the pontiff. He sug- 
gested further that as the centennial of the Consti- 
tution had just been commemorated, a copy of that 
would be one of the most appropriate gifts. Presi- | 
dent Cleveland accepted the cardinal’s suggestion 
as a happy one. Accordingly a copy was bound 
in white and red superbly printed in old English 
characters on vellum bearing the presentation inscrip- 


CARDINAL GIBBONS gI 


tion from the President to the Pope. Pope Leo 
was intensely pleased with the gift and exhibited 
it in his private apartments with the presentation 
page open so that visitors might see its provenance. 

It was not long after this incident of the presen- 
tation of the Constitution of the United States to 
Pope Leo XIII by President Cleveland, and its ac- 
ceptance by the Pope as a specially acceptable gift 
for his jubilee, that Senator Mark Hanna, the Ohio 
politician, who knew men so well, used that famous 
expression which has been so often quoted. His 
influence in the election of McKinley as President 
and the place that he came to occupy in the political 
life of the country as a consequence, made his ex- 
pression of very striking significance. When in the 
last decade of the nineteenth century socialism 
seemed to be threatening the peace and political 
solidarity of this country, he declared that there 
were two institutions which it seemed to him as- 
sured the proper control of socialistic tendencies in 
this country. These were the Supreme Court of 
the United States and the Roman Catholic Church. 
At the time when he spoke there had been very 
large immigration to this country for years and a 
great many of the immigrants came from countries 
where they were under strong Catholic influence and 
already the Catholic Church in this country was 


92 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


organizing them in congregations, and the politi- 
cally wise Mark Hanna felt that the future might 
well be trusted to education and consequent re- 
spect for law. Hence his declaration that the Su- 
preme Court and the Roman Catholic Church were 
the safeguards against political radicalism. 

The most interesting intellectual trait of Cardinal 
Gibbons was his wonderful memory. He had an 
unfailing power of recollecting names and faces that 
very few people have and then his remembrance for 
facts and dates of any special significance was a 
never-ending source of marvel to those close to him. 
He had besides that rare combination in connec- 
tion with these other modes of memory, a power 
of recalling words that was very striking. He could 
recite long passages of poetry or briefer para- 
graphs of prose that contained striking thoughts, 
word for word, long after he had heard them or 
repeated them previously. Down to the very end 
of his life he could write a sermon or more im- 
portant discourse and read it over twice and then 
repeat it almost word for word, apparently with- 
out any effort and certainly without any impairment | 
of his expression of significant values in it as would 
lessen its power to reach his hearers’ minds and 
hearts. Undoubtedly this marvelous memory of 
his was of very great value to him and meant much 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 93 


for his successful achievement. Some of those who 
are not possessed of it affect to despise memory, 
or at least make little of it, on the score that it is 
only a conventional power of reproducing thoughts 
that come from others and has little to do with 
that faculty of independent thought which is the 
highest of mental traits; but it must not be forgotten 
that memory has the greatest possible significance 
in supplying: material for thought and affording 
precedents for judgments that are of primary im- 
portance in practical life. 

Cardinal Gibbons possessed at all times, though 
it was particularly noticeable in the maturer years 
of his life, a fine power of grasping the significance 
of complicated problems, seeing the clew through 
them, and reaching a conclusion so rapidly that it 
seemed almost like intuition. “Those who knew him 
the best have dwelt upon this. Some of them have 
suggested that the cardinal seemed to have a power 
of perception that was almost uncanny. At times 
when you merely introduced a question to him and 
felt that it would require much more explanation, 
he grasped the whole subject and reached a definite 
conclusion with regard to it. ‘This was not the re- 
sult of any overhastiness to be rid of problems and 
find their solution at once, for far above the great 
majority of men he was prudent and rashness is one 


94. OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


of the faults that has never even been hinted at 
his regard. We have used the word intuition, and 
undoubtedly there is some such faculty in many peo- 
ple which enables them to see through the mean- 
ing of things without the need of that slower reason- 
ing which others require. It has often been said 
that intuition is a feminine quality and that it is 
noted best in action particularly where a woman’s 
love guides her rather than her mind alone. After 
all we have come to realize in recent years that 
there is a very definite significance for the use of 
the word heart as meaning something deeper in 
human thinking than merely the mind. 

The heart as “the sum total of kindly impulses” 
often enables those whose hearts are touched to 
see through a mass of details or a maze of dif_i- 
culties ever so much better than understanding alone 
would help them to do. In this way a woman’s 
intuition where the interests of those whom she 
loves deeply, husband, son, brother, are concerned, 
is often the most precious guide in the world. There 
are a certain number of men, usually those who have 
talent of such high order as to amount almost to © 
genius, who have this feminine quality. It is mainly 
noticeable in matters where the deepest interests of 
humanity are concerned. Cardinal Gibbons had 
often come to him for decision the great problems 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 95 


relating to Church and humanity and it was with 
regard to these that his friends noted his power 
of intuition. It is not surprising that he should 
have had it under the circumstances though it is 
another index of the superior nature of the man 
and the wellsprings of intellectual vitality that he 
had within himself. It is the judgment of such 
men particularly that counts with regard to the 
great problems of humanity that lie around us in 
the insoluble mysteries of our relation to the uni- 
verse and it is his place as a factor for the solution 
of these that made Cardinal Gibbons one of the 
powerful influences of his time in this country. 
Though his biographers generally have not 
dwelt much on it, Cardinal Gibbons had a deep 
sense of humor that helped him very much on his 
way through life. Like his Irish ancestors he could 
see the humorous side even of serious things and 
this prevented him from letting the troubles of life 
weigh heavily on him. What would his forbears 
have been where the melancholy Atlantic beats 
round their island and so many internal troubles 
were at work without this saving trait. A typical 
example of the quality of Cardinal Gibbons’ humor 
is quoted by Mr. Jacob A. Riis, in his autobiography, 
The Making of an American. “On one occasion 
when the Cardinal wished to excuse himself on the 


96 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


plea of being very tired, he explained that he had 
had a very wearisome day, and added: ‘And I am 
an old man, on the sunny side of sixty.’ ‘On the 
shady side, you mean,’ corrected a clergyman, who 
stood nearby. ‘The old Cardinal shook his head: 
‘No, the sunny side—nearer Heaven.’ ”’ 

Many problems demanding the enunciation of 
Church principles in their relation to the practical 
world around, came up during the course of Cardi- 
nal Gibbons’ life. Probably the most interesting 
of these and one of the most important for the 
estimation of the Church in the minds of the great 
mass of the working people of the country was 
what was known as the Knights of Labor problem 
in America in the last decade of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. The Knights of Labor represented an organ- 
ization of workmen throughout the country which 
had grown very rapidly in the eighties of the nine- 
teenth century. Its head, Mr. Terence V. Pow- 
derly, who bore the modest title of ‘General 
Master Workman,” declared before a committee 
of Congress in 1886 that it had a membership of 
500,000, although he added ‘‘we have been credited 
with 5,000,000.” The organization made itself 
felt in politics; the contract labor law forbidding 
the bringing of workmen into the country under 
contract, the Chinese exclusion act, even the Inter- 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 97 


state Commerce Act, were all due to the political 
influence of this organization. President Cleve- 
land’s administration committed itself to the estab- 
ment of the Department of Labor at Washington 
largely because of pressure brought to bear through 
them. 

All these were good effects but unfortunately 
Henry George’s economic theories were securing 
many adherents at this time and certain socialistic 
and communistic as well as anarchistic theories were 
spreading among the laboring classes. The anarchist 
riot in Chicago which cost precious lives had shocked 
many people. It seemed as though a whole series 
of factors were working for the disturbance of po- 
litical peace in this country. Class feelings were 
deeply aroused. So-called captains of industry were 
at work combining great industrial concerns and 
unfortunately lent themselves to influencing legisla- 
tion unduly and above all set themselves to secur- 
ing the control of politicians. It looked for a time 
as though there were seething elements at work 
within the body politic that might cause very seri- 
ous trouble. Socialism seemed threatening beyond 
anything like its real significance and as a result 
feelings of suspicion were aroused against organi- 
zations of workmen. 

Employers of labor, it is said, made it a point 


98 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


to send agents to take note of proceedings among 
the Knights of Labor at their meetings and some- 
times used information thus obtained to prevent 
the rise to important positions in industry of any 
of those closely allied with the organization and 
sometimes deprived them of their occupations. The 
result was the investment of the meetings of the 
Knights with suficient secrecy to protect their pro- 
ceedings from being divulged to those who might 
make wrong use of them. The Church has always 
been suspicious of secret societies and when the 
Knights of Labor were accused before the Catholic 
hierarchy of Canada as a secret society working 
against religion, they were condemned as coming 
under the ban of forbidden organizations and this 
condemnation was sustained by the Congregation 
of the Holy Office at Rome. | 

This action called for consideration by the hier- 
archy of the United States. Under the decrees of 
the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore the Knights 
could be condemned in the United States by the 
unanimous action of the archbishops; or in case the 
archbishops disagreed the case would be referred 
to Rome. As the only cardinal in the United States, 
Cardinal Gibbons had a very serious responsibility 
placed on his shoulders in this matter. He did not 
fear socialistic tendencies among the laboring 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 99 


classes, as did many others, and he felt that the 
American Church must not be hasty in condemna- 
tion of efforts that were manifestly intended to bet- 
ter the condition of the working classes. 

He took counsel with his friend, President Cleve- 
land, and opened an active correspondence with 
Cardinal Manning in England, who has been spoken 
of as “the Church’s apostle of labor” in the Eng- 
lish-speaking world. But of these men encouraged 
him in the idea that much could be accomplished 
in advancing the position of the laboring classes by 
encouraging proper union among them. He invited 
Mr. Terence Powderly to Baltimore so as to have 
an explanation of what was exactly the purpose and 
extent of secrecy among the Knights of Labor. As 
the result of the knowledge thus secured, Cardinal 
Gibbons was able to place before the archbishops of 
the country the real status of the Knights of Labor 
so that in the end only two of the twelve archbishops 
voted for condemnation. 

Cardinal Gibbons undertook next a task that his 
friends felt sure would end in failure. The Con- 
gregation of the Holy Office is the institution known 
in history as ‘‘the Inquisition.” It had never re- 
versed itself in its long history, it was said, and to 
suggest a favorable modification of the condemna- 
tion of the Knights of Labor seemed a hopeless 


100 }6©0OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


proposal. Cardinal Gibbons felt that to condemn 
the order was to condemn labor and that condemna- 
tion might force the Knights into socialistic tenden- 
cies. He felt that what he termed “the simple rights 
of humanity and justice” were being denied. When 
the cardinal went over for the reception of the red 
hat, he was resolved to place the problem of the 
Knights of Labor before the authorities in Rome 
at this time. He knew that there was very great 
opposition. He knew that a great many church- 
men in other countries were afraid of socialistic 
tendencies. He wrote a memorable epistle which 
was really a brief for the Knights of Labor to 
Cardinal Simeoni, Prefect of the Congregation of 
Propaganda, which was then in charge of the 
Church in the United States since this country was 
as yet considered a missionary country. He pro- 
vided an opening for a new judgment on the part 
of the Holy Office with regard to the affairs of the 
Knights of Labor in the United States by point- 
ing out how different were religious conditions in 
the United States and Canada. This was particu- 
larly true as regards Lower Canada where the 
people were almost entirely Catholic. 

This letter has sometimes been called “‘the Chris- 
tian charter of labor” in this country. Gradually 
the efforts of Cardinal Gibbons and of Cardinal 


CARDINAL GIBBONS IOI 


Manning made themselves felt and others began 
to see that radical action of the Church in the mat- 
ter would surely be a mistake of policy at least and 
that principles were not involved in anything like 
the way that was supposed. The result was a vic- 
tory for the Knights of Labor and for the arch- 
bishops of the United States, but above all, for 
Cardinal Gibbons which brought him prominently 
before the world. He made the Church’s position 
with regard to labor very clear. This did not come 
about without misunderstanding on the part of 
many of the conservatives and Cardinal Gibbons 
was even caricatured by Puck, the American comic 
journal, as blessing the mob in its work of destruc- 
tion, but his deeply humanitarian feelings came to 
make themselves felt very generally and the result 
was a new background for judgment as to labor’s 
rights and privileges. 

Only a few years later Pope Leo XIII (1891) 
issued his great encyclical, Rerum novarum, usually 
_ known in English as “The Condition of Labor,” in 
which he laid down the principles upon which the 
workman must be dealt with. ‘The great pontiff 
did not hesitate to say that “some remedy must be 
found quickly for the misery and wretchedness 
which weigh so heavily and unjustly at this moment 
on the majority of the working classes.” He even 


1o2 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


ventured to say very emphatically that unfortu- 
nately “the working men had been surrendered all 
isolated and helpless to the hard heartedness of 
employers,’ so that ‘‘a small number of very rich 
men had been able to lay upon the teeming masses 
of the laboring poor a yoke little better than slavery 
itself.” That encyclical, though issued thirty-five 
years ago, is still a gospel of the rights of labor. 

Other problems relating to important Church 
matters came up for decision before the American 
hierarchy in which Cardinal Gibbons’ influence was 
felt always for thoroughgoing conservatism and yet 
for that progressiveness which must be associated 
with the Church here in America. Above all, the 
school problem had to be worked out and as we 
know ever so much better now, on the question of 
religious teaching in the schools depends the growth 
and maintenance of the Church in numbers. Under 
Archbishop Ireland’s direction certain experiments 
had been made in the schools at Faribault and Still- 
water in Minnesota, by which it was hoped to se- 
cure such codperation between Catholics and the 
public schools as would provide a modus vivendi 
that would prove economic and efficient for both 
parties. The parochial school buildings in Fart- 
bault and Stillwater were leased to the district 
school commissioners during the school hours only. 


CARDINAL GIBBONS - 103 | 


The sisters taught during these hours and gave no 
religious instruction during school time. After 
school hours catechism was taught and at eight-thirty 
in the morning before the regular school hour the 
children attended Mass. At all other hours and on 
Sunday the school buildings were at the exclusive 
disposition of the parish. 

These experiments gave rise to widespread dis- 
cussion. The danger which many of the Catholic 
bishops and priests feared was that after a time 
the civic authorities would assert their influence in 
other ways over the scholastic curriculum and the 
real purpose of the Catholic school be lost. On 
the other hand a great many non-Catholics feared 
that this might be an entering wedge for the in- 
troduction of sectarian influences into the public- 
school system. It is a little difficult to understand 
now how bitter the controversy grew. Cardinal 
Gibbons was the conciliator in the matter and his 
influence with the Holy See drew from Pope Leo 
XIII a letter to the Cardinal of Baltimore in which 
the Pope set forth that the decisions of the Council 
of Baltimore in the school questions were to be 
faithfully observed and every endeavor must be 
made to multiply the Catholic schools and to raise 
their standards and equipment; but the public 
schools were not to be condemned since cases might 


104 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


occur in which it was permissible to attend them. 
Cardinal Satolli who was then the papal delegate 
to the United States laid down certain principles 
which emphasized the necessity for the religious 
training of youth but left to local conditions and 
the bishop of each diocese a certain liberty in work- 
ing out the plan by which this should be accom- 
plished. 

The school question was scarcely settled when 
another and more important subject for debate came 
up in what was known as Cahenslyism. Peter Ca- 
hensly was only the secretary of a Catholic society 
for the protection of German immigrants. Its first 
purpose was that of promoting the spiritual wel- 
fare of settlers in foreign countries but it assumed 
the duty of preserving the nationality and language 
of those who emigrated from Europe. In a cer- 
tain way the problem thus raised affected other 
countries and other nationalities besides the Ger- 
man. ‘There was an alliance among the foreign 
societies in this country to secure a certain inde- 
pendence of their own within the Church and ob- 
tain the appointment of bishops of their own na- 
tionality. They pointed out that there probably 
had been immense losses to the Church by the 
lapsing of immigrants from their religion and that 
this loss amounted to between fifteen and twenty 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 105 


millions in the American republic. These statistics 
have been seriously doubted and above all Bishop 
Canevin of Pittsburgh a few years ago showed 
how insubstantial they were. The whole question 
aroused deep attention and the Cahensly element 
brought it to the attention of the Pope. | 
Cardinal Gibbons was intent that the Church 
in this country should continue homogeneous, like 
the nation. He feared the disintegrating effects 
of the different nationalities maintaining their own 
languages, their home customs, their foreign lan- 
guage newspapers, all emphasized by their own prel- 
ates. What happened during the World War has 
illuminated very strikingly Cardinal Gibbons’ ex- 
pressions and feelings in that matter. As a matter 
of fact, while great influence was brought to bear 
by European countries in the matter, the German 
Catholics of this country, as a mass, were not behind 
the Cahensly movement. As with regard to the 
school question, it is a little difficult for us now, 
though not a full generation away, to understand 
how bitter were the animosities that were aroused 
and how fraught with danger for the peace of the 
country was the movement. Fortunately Cardinal 
Gibbons’ large-hearted patriotism and the esteem 
in which he was held by all had very much to do 
with gradually clearing the air here in America 


1066 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


and making the situation manifest in its true signifi- 
cance to the authorities in Rome. Hyphenated 
Americanism is now a thing of the past, made so by 
the Great War, but Cardinal Gibbons’ foresight was 
extremely important in eliminating from American 
life what might have proved very discordant ele- 
ments had they been allowed to grow as luxuriantly 
as they threatened to do at the height of the Ca- 
hensly movement. We were a much more united 
people in 1917 when we entered the War as the 
result of Cardinal Gibbons’ prudence. 

Very probably the most important work accom- 
plished by Cardinal Gibbons in his official position 
and as an American citizen was that which con- 
cerned our newly acquired possessions after the 
Spanish-American War. The Philippines partic- 
ularly had been very largely under the influence of 
the Church and the friars had acquired a position 
even in the political government to such an extent 
that their replacement threatened to bring about 
collapse of authority. President Taft, talking at 
the Catholic Summer School of America, declared 
that there was no higher tribute that could be paid 
to the Catholic Church and the beneficence of its in- 
fluence than the fact that an absolutely uncivilized 
people in the Philippines had been raised by its 
missionaries to a level of civilization where on the 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 107 


transfer to the United States they were almost ready 
for independent government. During the course 
of this process the missionaries, that is, the friars 
or members of religious orders had quite naturally 
come to assume many of the functions of govern- 
ment. Spanish officials were few and frequently 
changed and the friars resided permanently in the 
country and the people came to look to them as their 
representatives in authority. Religious orders con- 
stituted the first schools of agriculture in Europe. 
It is not surprising then that in the Philippines they 
raised the value of their land by their skill and 
attention. As they had no heirs except their breth- 
ren their possessions accumulated and were added 
to by gifts and bequests from pious Church mem- 
bers. 

The question of these valuable friars’ lands then 
became one of the most important for the settle- 
ment of Philippine political disaffection. Negotia- 
tions in the matter were difficult and in spite of the 
willingness of the United States government to do 
all that it could, it was hampered by the political 
difficulties inevitably involved here in America if 
United States authorities should even seem to be 
generous to the friars. Negotiations had come to 
a standstill when Cardinal Gibbons was consulted 
by President Roosevelt and offered to find a way 


108 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


to settlement. President Roosevelt sent Secretary 
‘Taft who had been the Civil Governor of the Philip- 
pines to Baltimore to consult Cardinal Gibbons be- 
fore going to Rome for a complete settlement. It 
was through the cardinal’s influence that the whole 
question was taken up at Rome and expedited to a 
successful and satisfactory conclusion. ‘There then 
remained the problems connected with the reorgan- 
ization of the hierarchy in the Philippines, Porto 
Rico and Cuba, and for this Cardinal Gibbons visited 
Rome and after a series of consultations with Pope 
Leo XIII and the members of the Roman Curia the 
idea of sending American bishops to the Islands 
thoroughly in touch with the American system of 
relations between Church and State was worked out 
to the great benefit of all concerned. 

There remained certain more or less inevitable 
developments in the Church situation in these newly 
acquired American possessions which had to be 
worked out carefully. Whenever there was friction 
in the Philippines or in the West Indies, Cardinal 
Gibbons was appealed to and his close touch with 
President Roosevelt brought about a satisfactory 
solution of the problems. Between President Roose- 
velt and after him President Taft and Cardinal 
Gibbons there was always the friendliest understand- 
ing and the recognition that they were all intent on 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 109 


the benefit of all concerned and especially the ap- 
plication of American principles to these portions of 
the union. When legislation against the Church or 
at least that would greatly hamper its ministrations 
threatened once in Cuba, Cardinal Gibbons con- 
ferred with President Taft and Mr. Knox, Secretary 
of State, who proved most sympathetic. President 
Taft said that he was sending a fleet to the Argentine 
Republic to participate in its centenary, bearing 
General Leonard Wood whom the President would 
instruct to stop at Havana with the fleet and have 
a conversation with President Gomez on the subject 
of the proposed adverse laws. President Gomez ex- 
pressed his conviction that the laws would not be 
passed and that if passed they would certainly be 
vetoed. The papal Secretary of State thanked Car- 
dinal Gibbons for his intervention in the matter. 
When it became clear that Pope Leo XIII after 
his long years as pope was approaching the end of 
life, Cardinal Gibbons sailed for Europe so as to 
take part in the conclave for the election of a new 
pope. This was the first time that an American car- 
dinal had ever taken part in the election. Owing to 
the exercise of the veto power which by custom had 
become vested in the Austrian government, Cardinal 
Rampolla who like so many others according to the 
old phrase entered the conclave pope but came out 


110 ~=OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


cardinal, failed of election. The College of Car- 
dinals then chose Cardinal Sarto of Venice as the 
successor of Leo XIII. Cardinal Sarto however 
who had no inkling of the possibility of his being 
chosen and had actually bought a return ticket to 
Venice when he set out for Rome, was overcome at 
the prospect of the burden thus to be placed on his 
shoulders and refused to accept it. It has been said 
very probably with truth that when the representa- 
tions of Italian cardinal friends failed to move the 
Patriarch of Venice, a message from Cardinal Gib- 
bons sent to him through Cardinal Satolli turned the 
scale in favor of his acceptance. The force of the 
idea that the cardinal representative of the western 
Catholic world, where the Church was so progres- 
sive, added the weight of his advice also to others, 
swayed Cardinal Sarto’s mind and he became that 
‘pope of the people, the children and the Eucharist”’ 
who meant so much for the revival of the spirit of 
piety in the Church at the beginning of the twentieth 
century. 

In October, 1911, occurred the celebration of 
the jubilee of Cardinal Gibbons as a priest, that is 
the fiftieth year of his ordination. The occasion be- 
came a national event. Archbishop Glennon of St. 
Louis made the address for the ecclesiastical cele- 
bration of that event. In doing so he probably 


CARDINAL GIBBONS III 


summed up Cardinal Gibbons’ place in modern his- 
tory better than any other could hope to do, for 
his position and his long years of association with 
the Cardinal of Baltimore gave him opportunity to 
know him and appreciate his services to humanity 
and to his country better than any one else. Arch- 
bishop Glennon said, “In the defense of social 
order; in the promotion of human right; in the 
supreme effort to maintain the social fabric and the 
institutions of our beloved country, no voice in all 
the broad land is to-day as potent, no personality so 
influential as that of our beloved Cardinal. 

‘Indeed the position of Cardinal Gibbons is 
unique not alone in Church history, but in world his- 
tory as well. There have been great Cardinals in 
the centuries that are gone—Wolsey, Richelieu—but 
the opportunity of their greatness arose in part at 
least from the union of Church and State that then 
existed, and history tells us that they served their 
king with far more zeal than they served their God. 
We have had great Cardinals in modern times— 
Wiseman, Manning, Newman—and again in part 
their greatness came from the noble defense they 
made of a Church that was persecuted. 

‘“We may not deny their greatness, their learn- 
ing, their consecration; but, unlike any one member 
of either group, our Cardinal stands with the same 


112 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


devotion to his country as Richelieu had for France, 
cultivating a citizenship as unstained as Newman, 
and while reaching out to a broader democracy than 
even Cardinal Manning, he still remains preéminent 
in his unquestioned devotion to Holy Church. 

‘“‘And so, my friends, you have before you some of 
the titles his Eminence has to our respect and rever- 
ence; so many reasons why you should thank God 
that he so blest His servant and thereby blest us all. 

“Priest, Bishop, Cardinal, philosopher, lawgiver, 
chancellor, yes, and let us not omit through all these 
high sounding titles that other—the first we notice, 
the last we may forget— 


“ “For he is gracious if he be observed 
He hath a tear for pity and a hand 
Open as day for meeting charity’ 


“Yes, Cardinal Gibbons is a kindly, gentle man.” 

Very probably one of the most touching things in 
the life of Cardinal Gibbons is the scene which has 
been described by his biographer evidently from 
Cardinal Gibbons’ own relation of it, of his parting 
with Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia. The two 
great churchmen, whose years rang along very nearly 
parallel, had become closer and closer as the years 
rolled on. ‘They had been intimate companions as 
well as faithful colleagues in all important Church 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 113 


matters during half a century. Gradually they had 
seen their contemporaries disappear from the scene 
one after the other and they were almost alone whén 
manifestly Archbishop Ryan’s term of life was ap- 
proaching. That last parting might possibly be 
thought of as entirely preoccupied with thoughts of 
another world. As a matter of fact what the two 
great churchmen talked about was their country and 
the hope of its future greatness and their confidence 
that the Catholic Church by keeping it conservative 
would lead to the enhancement of that greatness. 

As the story is told, “A few days before Ryan’s 
death, the Cardinal went to Philadelphia to visit 
him. Entering the sick room, he placed his hand 
upon the Archbishop’s brow and said softly: 

“Your Grace does not know me.’ 

‘The Archbishop, who had been hovering on the 
verge of unconsciousness, answered in a sudden rally 
of his faculties: 

““T know every tone of your Eminence’s voice 
and now, as ever, I am convinced that you are the 
instrument of Providence for every good thing for 
our Church and country.’ 

“The sick prelate, seemingly endowed with new 
strength, talked for some minutes with the Cardinal. 
They spoke of men and things long gone, of mutual 
hopes that had blossomed or withered. Naturally 


114 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


their thoughts turned to the future of the nation, 
which they had served so faithfully. 

‘“““Tf we keep America conservative,’ said the 
Archbishop, ‘no country will be as great as this.’ ”’ 

When the United States entered the World War, 
Cardinal Gibbons at once expressed his complete 
readiness to support his country in any and every 
way and declared that ‘“‘there must be no shirkers.”’ 
On his eighty-second birthday the year before, he 
had expressed his approval of the training camps 
and their value ‘‘to safeguard the nation, build up its 
manhood and fuse its foreign strains.’’ Above all 
he thought them valuable because they brought “the 
rich man and the poor man together on an equal 
footing and taught them that they owe an equal 
allegiance.’ ‘The week after the declaration of war 
the archbishops of the United States met and on 
the proposal of Cardinal Gibbons adopted a set of 
resolutions which appealed deeply to the patriotic 
sense of the country. Cardinal Gibbons sent the 
resolutions the next day to President Wilson, who 
called them “‘very remarkable resolutions” and de- 
clared that they warmed his heart and ‘‘made me 
proud indeed that men of such large influence should 
act in so large a sense of patriotism and so admirable 
a spirit of devotion to our common country.” 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 116 


The opening paragraphs of the resolutions were 
as follows: 

“Standing firmly upon our solid Catholic tradi- 
tion and history, from the very foundation of this 
nation, we affirm in this hour of stress and trial our 
most sacred and sincere loyalty and patriotism to- 
ward our country, our government and our flag. 

‘Moved to the very depths of our hearts by the 
stirring appeal of the President of the United States, 
and by the action of our National Congress, we ac- 
cept whole-heartedly and unreservedly the decree of 
that legislative authority proclaiming this country 
to be in a state of war. 

‘We have prayed that we might be spared the 
dire necessity of entering the conflict, but now that 
war has been declared we bow in obedience to the 
summons to bear our part in it with fidelity, with 
courage and with the spirit of sacrifice which as 
loyal citizens we are bound to manifest for the 
defense of the most sacred rights, and the welfare 
of the whole nation.” 

Cardinal Gibbons’ love for his country was deep 
and cordial and it was constantly bubbling up for 
expression. In his Retrospect of Fifty Years he 
said, “‘My countrymen and my fellow Catholics will 
forgive me if I seem to yearn over this Church and 
this people; but I do so because I believe both the 


116 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


American Church and the American people to be 
precious in the sight of God and designed, each one 
in its proper sphere, for a glorious future.” As 
Rev. Father Felix has suggested, these are an echo 
of his words in Rome years before when he was 
created cardinal in 1887: “I belong to the country 
where the civil government holds over us the egis 
of its protection without interfering with us in the 
legitimate exercise of our mission as ministers of the 
Gospel of Christ. Our country has liberty without 
license and authority without despotism. ‘The men 
who would endeavor to undermine the laws and in- 
stitutions of this country deserve the fate of those 
who laid profane hands on the Ark.” 

The official biographer of Cardinal Gibbons, Mr. 
Allen Sinclair Will, in concluding his monumental 
life of our great cardinal, one of the important 
American biographies of our day, summed up very 
succinctly and yet very truthfully, the character and 
the reasons for the influence Cardinal Gibbons ex- 
erted over his generation. He emphasized particu- 
larly Cardinal Gibbons’ personal habits of devotion 
and prayer “‘as the first and chief duty of every 
day’? and as the source and inspiration of all the 
‘simple acts of kindness to all without partition of 
creed or race’ which made his life such a striking 
one for all those who knew him even a little inti- 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 117 


mately. That life was a great apologia for religion 
and what religion can accomplish in making a man 
a better citizen, a fonder lover of his kind, and 
an unselfish representative of all that is best in 
human nature. 

His biographer said of him: “With him religion 
was a real thing—the greatest reality of life—and 
his eyes were fixed on it as his support and his guide 
in manifold labors that left an indelible stamp upon 
the fabric of contemporaneous history. 

“That he was a Christian was a glory of all 
Christians; that he was a Catholic was a glory of all 
Catholics. 

“To those who saw him from afar, his wider acts 
of accomplishment were the measure of him; but 
what impression remained with the hundreds, even 
thousands, who felt directly in the course of his 
long life the personal force of the man, who heard 
his voice, touched his hand, came under the power 
of his striking and distinctive personality? Catholic 
and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, Pope and Presi- 
dent, statesman and street urchin, the high and the 
low of many degrees, would frame their answers 
differently; but all who knew him shared in one com- 
posite thought, overshadowing and embracing other 
thoughts of him, the blend of his legacy to his fellow- 
men—Here was a man of God.” 


118 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


So far as he was a man above men—though the 
cardinal himself would have been the first to dep- 
recate any such tribute, he would have said very 
candidly that he owed whatever there was in his 
life worth while to two things—his adhesion to the 
Catholic Church and his personal habit of prayer 
which he felt enabled him to be the channel for 
divine influences-for himself and others. 

Cardinal Gibbons’ own faith and adhesion to the 
Catholic Church was so intense as to leave no room 
in his mind for doubts. Difficulties there might be, 
but as Cardinal Newman said, a thousand difficulties 
cannot make a single doubt. Father Felix Ward, 
the Passionist, who was a close personal friend of 
the cardinal’s, tells how once on a walk with his 
Eminence he quoted the words of Cardinal New- 
man. “Either the Catholic Religion is verily the 
coming of the unseen world into this, or there is 
nothing positive, nothing dogmatic, nothing real in 
any of our notions as to whence we come or whither 
we go.” The cardinal added: “There would be 
nothing for us but black despair, if the Church is 
not divine.” | 

A few years ago when Cardinal Vaughan of Eng- 
land died and his life was published, one of the sur- 
prises that struck most people was his habit of 
prayer. Here was a man who was extremely busy, 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 11g 


concerned with many important affairs, with scarcely 
enough time in the twenty-four hours to do all that 
he wanted to do, and yet he actually spent hours 
every day in prayer. He himself declared that so 
far from interfering with his work prayer made it 
possible for him to do as much as he did and that 
without it he should have been lost and could not 
hope to accomplish so much. He would have lacked 
confidence in his own powers and in his own motives 
and he would have worked with less enthusiasm and 
less devotion, but above all he felt that surely he 
would have missed potent direction that meant so 
much for him and that enabled him to go on. 
Cardinal Gibbons was such another man. He was 
an early riser. Of course he said his Mass every 
morning but he spent an hour before Mass in medi- 
tating on the life of the Lord and Master, taking 
some passage of the New Testament as a text for his 
thoughts. “Only in meditation the Mystery speaks 
to us.” He said to his confessor once, ‘With ever 
increasing demands on me I could never say I have 
not time to pray.” He never missed his visit to 
the Blessed Sacrament in the evening. “A visit to 
our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament,” he said, ‘‘dis- 
sipates the worldly mist that may have enveloped 
you and brings you nearer to the God of light and 
diffuses around you a spirit of heavenly tranquillity.” 


120 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


He often said that he thought he owed his power to 
sleep even when many problems were clamoring for 
solution to his habit of prayer and the fact that he 
could say whole-heartedly ‘Thy Will be done.” 

The rosary was very precious to him. He said it 
daily and made it a point whenever social obligations 
took him out in the evening to say it on the way. 
Those who went with him in his carriage shared the 
rosary with him and he felt that it did them all 
good. His household became inevitably a focus of 
prayer and it is interesting and extremely significant 
to realize that out of that household, that is from 
among the members of the circle who for a longer 
or shorter time shared the home life of the cardinal, 
there came more bishops for the United States than 
from any other similar environment. So true was 
this that the cardinal’s home was spoken of as a 
“nursery of bishops.” 

Some of the tributes that were paid to the car- 
dinal after his death give an excellent idea of the 
esteem in which he was held by our most distin- 
guished men in this country because of his wisdom 
and his patriotism. Ex-President Taft for instance 
said of him, ‘“The Cardinal was a man of most 
kindly heart and broad vision, of statesmanlike 
views on great questions and with indomitable 
courage in expressing them. He represented the 


CARDINAL GIBBONS 121 


highest moral aspirations of the community and all 
classes of good people, without regard to creed, 
were grateful to him for his constant effort to lift 
its members out of sordid ambitions and pursuits 
and to aim at higher things. As a non-Catholic 
I am glad to bear witness to the power for good 
which Cardinal Gibbons exercised. He was an able 
churchman and patriotic citizen.” On hearing of 
the death of the cardinal, President Harding 
dispatched the following message to the auxiliary 
bishop of Baltimore: “In common with all our peo- 
ple, I mourn the death of Cardinal Gibbons. His 
long and notable service to the country and to the 
Church makes us all his debtors. He was ever 
ready to lend his encouragement to any movement 
for the betterment of his fellowmen. He was the 
very finest type of citizen and churchman. It was 
my good fortune to know him personally and I held 
him in highest esteem and veneration. His death 
is a distinct loss to the country, but it brings to fuller 
appreciation a great and admirable life.” 


JOHN, CARDINAL FARLEY * 


Tuirp AMERICAN CARDINAL 


ON the occasion of the elevation of Archbishop 
Farley of New York to membership in the College 
of Cardinals, Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore was 
invited to deliver the address. The keynote of that 
address was contained in the words, “It is not the 
cardinal that ennobles a man; it is the man that en- 
nobles the cardinal.’’ That is surely the best for- 
mula with which to begin the life of Cardinal Farley 
for to those who knew him he was a man of very 
noble and precious character who though of com- 
paratively short stature stood head and shoulders 
above other men because of his moral worth as a 
man. His one purpose in life was to be just as good 
a churchman as possible. No one knew better than 
he however that though he was only a naturalized - 
citizen of the United States and not a native that his 


* The sketch of Cardinal Farley by Right Reverend Michael J.. 
Lavelle (New York Paulist Press, 1919) forms the basis of this 
article. As Monsignor Lavelle was for some forty years very 
close to Cardinal Farley while he was going through the steps of 
ecclesiastical preferment as a priest, auxiliary bishop, archbishop 
and cardinal, the material that he has gathered is authentic and 
authoritative. 

I22 





Copyright A. ayn 
From Underwood and Underwood, N. Y. 


CARDINAL FARLEY 





CARDINAL FARLEY 123 


duties as a churchman were not fulfilled as they 
should be unless he were at the same time a worthy 
citizen of this country deeply intentson furthering its 
interests in every possible way that he could. Com- 
ing from Ireland he knew the precious heritage of 
liberty that was in the United States and his con- 
stant thought was to help the citizens in the country 
to preserve that liberty so that it might go down 
as an unfailing deposit to future generations. 

John Murphy Farley was born at Newtown 
Hamilton, County Armagh, Ireland, April, 1842. 
His family were plain farming people in reasonably 
comfortable circumstances, able to afford their chil- 
dren a good education. One of his brothers, Ed- 
ward Farley, emigrated to New York and became 
a rather prominent merchant in the city. His ma- 
ternal uncle, Patrick Murphy, was for years a mem- 
ber of the well-known firm of Solomon & Son. The 
future cardinal’s preliminary studies were made near 
his native home, but Irish schoolmasters have ever 
been known for their thoroughness, and he secured 
an excellent grasp of Latin and Greek and of funda- 
mentals in mathematics. 

He came to this country in 1864 and immediately 
entered St. John’s College, Fordham, which has 
now become Fordham University. At that time 
St. John’s was a flourishing institution. It had been 


124 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


founded originally by Archbishop Hughes about 
twenty-five years before, and he had transferred 
it to the Jesuits from St. Mary’s in Kentucky in 
1846. ‘This fact brought a number of southern 
students to the college and the war had prevented 
their further attendance, but the college had con- 
tinued to progress and was looked upon at that time 
as very probably one of the most important of the 
Catholic colleges in the country. 

At Fordham young Farley displayed brilliant 
talents and a capacity for learning which attracted 
attention and led many people to feel that here was 
a young man who would surely make more than an 
ordinary success of life. He was particularly ex- 
pert in mathematics and in languages. He had 
moreover a deep interest in English literature culti- 
vated for its own sake because there was not very 
much encouragement for purely English studies at 
that time. Education was looked upon as formation 
of mind rather than information of memory and 
mental discipline rather than interest was the fun- 
damental note in the arrangement of studies. Young 
Farley was however very much interested in the 
cultivation of various modes of expression in Eng- 
lish. He developed a facility and elegance in writ- 
ing verse which according to those who knew him 
at the time might with appropriate cultivation have 


CARDINAL FARLEY 125 


enabled him to attain a power of poetic expression 
that would have brought with it very definite pres- 
tige. 

At the end of a year at Fordham he entered 
upon his theological studies in the provincial semi- 
nary of New York which was then situated at Troy. 
Here he distinguished himself so remarkably in his 
studies that at the end of a single year he was 
chosen by Archbishop McCloskey on the recom- 
mendation of the rector of the seminary to continue 
and finish his studies in theology and the subjects 
related to it at the North American College in 
Rome usually spoken of simply as the American 
College. 

Almost needless to say this experience of three 
years at the American College was extremely val- 
uable to a man of Farley’s character for he had 
a broad foundation of education in the classics and 
deep interests in classical Rome. He had devel- 
oped various historical interests besides and indeed 
was known for his attraction to this form of study. 
Between the remains of classical Rome and the 
memorials of the Church of the Fathers and of 
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the young 
American College student obtained a magnificent 
background on which to appreciate the significance 
of historical information. He was present at the 


126 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


canonization of the Japanese martyrs in 1867 and 
that completed the background of Church history 
for him since it added a touch of interest in the 
history of the missions, recalled all of Francis 
Xavier’s great work and that of his successors in 
the East, and above all brought back to attention 
the fact that some of the Japanese deprived of 
priests had yet succeeded in certain parts of Japan in 
keeping alive the knowledge and the spirit of Chris- 
tianity and had been ready to welcome the Catho- 
lic missionaries when, centuries later, they came 
once more into the celestial kingdom. For a young 
man’s mind nothing could be more broadening than 
the focusing of all these interests during the very 
impressionable years under twenty-five. 

One of the fruits of Cardinal Farley’s years in 
Rome was a great devotion to St. Philip Neri who 
is often spoken of as the Apostle of Rome. St. 
Philip who is the founder of the Oratory, that is 
of the religious congregation, the Oratorians, a 
body of priests who devote themselves to missionary 
work among the educated youth of cities, was a. 
most lovable character. From a number of con- 
versations that I had with the cardinal while trying 
to sketch the background of St. Philip’s life for 
my volume The Century of Columbus, it was very 
evident that he had tried above all to model his life 


CARDINAL FARLEY 127 


after that of St. Philip. It was among the Ora- 
torians founded by St. Philip that Newman and 
Faber and many of the distinguished converts of 
the Oxford or TJractarian movement in England 
found their vocations and their opportunities for 
work. Cardinal Farley’s favorite spiritual reading 
was the life of St. Philip. He gave me a copy of 
Capecelatro’s life of St. Philip and while reading 
that I came to realize that it represented one of 
the best keys to the cardinal’s own life. 

There was another distinct advantage in young 
Farley’s stay in Rome in that he was present in 
the capital of Christendom during the whole period 
of the Vatican Council. ‘This enabled him to know 
by sight at least the great prelates of the Church, 
to get in touch with their personalities and have 
it brought home to him what each of them had ac- 
complished in his diocesan work, but also in the in- 
tellectual order for the benefit of the Church. It 
is this touch with mature minds who have done 
great good work that is the best possible incentive 
to the young mind to pursue its own studies seri- 
ously quite apart from any necessity there may be 
of study because of various academic obligations. 
All during his life as archbishop and cardinal, Cardi- 
nal Farley referred to the precious privilege that 
had thus been his of seeing the prelates of the 


128 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Church assembled from all quarters, attending their 
deliberations at certain times, meeting many of 
them and realizing what a scholarly yet simple- 
minded body of men they were. He was ordained 
June 11, 1870, by Cardinal Patrizi and some six 
weeks later left the Eternal City for New York 
where his duties in the ministry were to be car- 
ried on. 

Already there were rumblings of the Italian revo- 
lution and as the declaration of war between France 
and Germany had been made on July 19, 1870, it 
was evident that there might not be possibility of 
further intervention on the part of the French em- 
peror for the maintenance of papal authority. 
Father Farley’s departure at the beginning of 
August came just before the Italian invasion of 
Rome and he was spared the pain of witnessing that 
sad event and the retirement of the Pope within 
the Vatican from which up to the present time he 
has not issued. Father Farley’s years in Rome had 
been under the old-time papal dispensation with all 
the glory of religious processions in the streets and 
the demonstration of tender feelings of the people 
for their pontiff, but all that was now at an end. 
To have seen that phase of history however was to 
have acquired a special background for the under- 
standing of Italian history as well as the history of 


CARDINAL FARLEY 129 


the Church that could not have been secured in any 
other way. ‘Those who later on in life were some- 
times surprised at the breadth and depth of Car- 
dinal Farley’s knowledge of men and things and of 
political affairs in Europe, forgot that he had been 
in intimate touch with events in history which en- 
abled him to understand a great many affairs of 
importance better than could ever be hoped for 
from the merely academic student of historical 
events. 

Father Farley’s first assignment after his return 
to America was as assistant to the pastor at New 
Brighton, Staten Island. ‘This was a full quarter 
century and more before the time when Staten Island 
came to be included within the boundaries of greater 
New York and New Brighton was a country parish 
comparatively little disturbed by its propinquity to 
the metropolis of New York from which it was 
separated by the width of the Bay with extremely 
inadequate ferry service. Here he was drawn into 
what was quite literally country parish work and he 
gave himself to it whole-heartedly. He became 
deeply interested in the parishioners and all the 
phases of parish activities and demonstrated rather 
strikingly that personal characteristic of devotion 
to the task in hand which was to be so marked in 
later life. Whatever was the duty assigned was 


130 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


God’s work and therefore deserved every atom of 
attention and devotion no matter how comparatively 
trivial from a material standpoint it might seem 
to be. His stay in Brighton altogether was less 
than two years, but the older people of the little 
town continued to remember him very cordially 
until the last day of his life and followed his rise 
in the ecclesiastical world with hearty attention and 
good wishes. 

In 1872 with the promotion to the bishopric of 
Albany, of Rev. Francis McNierney who had been 
secretary to Archbishop McCloskey, Father Farley 
was appointed to the secretaryship. ‘This consti- 
tuted his first step on the rungs of the ladder of 
ecclesiastical promotion. His years in Rome, his 
wide acquaintance with the authorities of the Eternal 
City, his deep interest and love for the liturgy of 
the Church, and his proficiency in Canon Law for 
which his Roman studies had given him a special 
liking and afforded a magnificent foundation, all 
fitted him eminently for this position. Besides he 
was a man of extremely methodical habits and this 
is needed as a characteristic of the secretary to an 
archbishop. It was not long before it came to be 
recognized that there was another quality of his 
which had not been noted before and which made 
his appointment very fitting. This was his felicity 


CARDINAL FARLEY 131 


in correspondence. It is a very valuable trait to be 
able to say “no” without hurting feelings. Almost 
needless to say the secretary of an archbishop has 
on many occasions to say “no” for permissions and 
indults are asked that cannot be granted and yet 
it is gracious to be able to refuse without hurting the 
feelings of the applicant who means well enough as 
a rule but has to be told that what he asks is im- 
possible or at least inadvisable under the circum- 
stances. 

Father Farley soon attracted the cordial attention 
of the clergy and the people in this position which 
necessarily makes him the connecting link between 
the ‘archbishop and his flock as well as his priests. 
One who knew him very well did not hesitate to say 
that ‘the won the hearts of the clergy and the people 
by his affability, sympathy and resource.’ For 
more than a dozen years Father Farley continued 
to occupy this position always exhibiting the same 
lovable traits of character. ‘The elevation of his 
prelate Archbishop McCloskey to the cardinalate in 
1875 reflected something of prestige on the position 
of his secretary and his visit to Rome with the 
cardinal in 1878 when Pope Leo was elected to the 
papacy added to that prestige. It was not surprising 
that after these dozen of years in the position he 
was nominated as papal chamberlain in January, 


132 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


1884 though it is more than a little surprising that 
that appointment was delayed quite so long as it 
was. It is understood now that the delay was due 
more to Father Farley’s own modesty and his un- 
willingness to be distinguished above other priests 
of the diocese, some of whom had spent long years 
in hard work in the ministry without any further 
ecclesiastical preferment than their pastorates. It 
was he himself a little later who was to introduce 
the custom of providing through the Roman au- 
thorities dignities in larger number for his loyal 
clergy. 

In August, 1884, Monsignor Farley was ap- 
pointed to the pastorate of St. Gabriel’s Church in 
East 37th Street. This was a very populous parish 
composed mostly of working people very closely 
attached to the Church and ready to take advantage 
of all the spiritual opportunities afforded them. He 
succeeded in winning the hearts of his parishioners 
and during the eighteen years of his pastorate the 
very closest of kindly relations existed between pas- 
tor and flock. Monsignor Farley was deeply in- 
terested particularly in the development of the 
parochial school in connection with the parish. He 
wanted to make it just as far as possible the equal 
of the public school so far as secular studies were 
concerned, besides providing in it a training of heart 


CARDINAL FARLEY 133 


and will that would conduce very materially to good 
citizenship. All his life after this he was devoted 
to the thought of making parochial schools just as 
efficient as possible and that came to be one of the 
tasks that he took most to heart during the time that 
he was archbishop and cardinal. Feeling that purely 
secular education unless associated with religious 
training leaves people without a firm anchorage in 
life, he was sure that the best contribution the 
Catholic Church could make for good citizenship 
in America was to provide that combination of re- 
ligious and secular studies which trained the whole 
man and not merely his intellect at the expense of 
his will. 

It is only with the rise of the next generation so 
many of them entirely without religious training that 
the increase in the amount of crime and the loose- 
ness of living have asserted themselves which are 
gradually waking up this generation to the realiza- 
tion of the foresight of men like Cardinal Farley 
when they devoted themselves to the development 
to the utmost of religious schools here in America. 
It is only in our own day that we have come to 
realize that knowledge alone may actually be harm- 
ful rather than beneficial to mankind. If education 
does not make men better it may serve only to make 
clever scoundrels and there are too many criminals 


134 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


in our prisons and any number more outside of them 
which show us that universal education alone does 
not make men better unless it develops their heart 
as well as their head, that is, increases the sum total 
of kindly impulses in them. “Where these kindly 
impulses exist,” as Bertrand Russell said, “science 
helps them to be effective; where they are absent, 
science only makes men more cleverly diabolic.” 
No wonder then that the Cardinal Archbishop of 
New York felt that his life work could not be better 
directed than to making religious schools just as 
efficient as possible both intellectually and morally. 
His emphasis on this point accomplished wonders in 
the raising up of parochial schools to the position 
which they occupy at the present time but above 
all for the future of development that is planned 
for them. 

Cardinal Farley himself in later life used to say 
that the most useful period of his life so far as his 
own personal development was concerned came as 
the result of the years as pastor of St. Gabriel’s 
Church. It brought him into intimate contact with 
both priests and people and above all it taught him 
the duties, the opportunities, the trials and the joys 
of a pastor’s work. Nothing could have been better 
for him as a preparation for the higher ecclesiastical 
duties that he was destined to fulfill. He organized 


CARDINAL FARLEY 135 


the spiritual side of his parish, saw that its religious 
societies of various kinds flourished, not alone in 
numbers but in spirit, and brought the priests and 
people ever closer together. From the practical 
side of the pastor’s life he learned much that was of 
value for the administration of his diocese. He was 
always very practical minded and his parish was a 
model of administration. He freed the church 
from debt and had it consecrated, which is not per- 
mitted by the church authorities until the last dollar 
of indebtedness has been paid on the property. In 
preparation for this event he had finished the spire 
of the church and renovated its whole interior. 

It might be thought that he would stop after this 
and consider that his work was done and that others 
might bring about any further developments and 
that as it were something should be left for his 
successor to do. Monsignor Farley however built 
the parish hall so as to have a meeting place for his 
parishioners and to bring about more intimate con- 
tact among them. He felt that above all it was 
extremely important to bring Catholic young folk 
together in various festivities for thus they learned 
to know each other and marriages within the house- 
hold of the faith were more likely to occur. ‘The 
mixed marriage evil is one of lack of opportunities 
for Catholic young folks to meet while social op- 


136 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


portunities for the meeting with those outside of 
the Church are so abundant. After this he planned 
the erection of a new school and it was only his 
call to higher duties that made him leave this work 
for his successor though under such circumstances 
as made it incumbent on that successor to fulfill his 
duty. Monsignor Farley also during his pastorship 
at St. Gabriel’s instituted parochial visitation by the 
clergy of all the members of the parish in order that 
there might be closer touch between priests and 
people and even the least of those committed to his 
care might not be neglected through any fault of 
his. It was to this devoted pastor of his people that 
there came as the reward for his zealous labors 
though all unlooked for, the promotion to the posi- 
tion of Auxiliary Bishop of New York. No appoint- 
ment could have been more felicitous nor more wel- 
come to priests and people. 

The first incident to call attention to the future 
cardinal’s influence with the priests and people of 
the New York archdiocese, occurred in connection 
with the celebration of the silver jubilee of Arch- 
bishop Corrigan’s elevation to the rank of bishop in 
1898. As Auxiliary Bishop of New York he con- 
sulted with the leading priests as to the most satis- 
factory token of affection and loyalty that they could 
give the archbishop on the occasion. ‘The new St. 


CARDINAL FARLEY 137 


Joseph’s Seminary at Dunwoodie which had been 
completed some two years before was still burdened 
with a debt of $300,000. ‘Thirty years ago this 
seemed a very large sum, and the lifting of it would 
probably prove a source of more relief for the arch- 
bishop than anything else that could be done. 
Bishop Farley undertook the leadership of the 
movement and carried it to complete success. On 
May 4, 1898, the day of the celebration, the mort- 
gage was burned and the satisfaction piece was 
placed in the hands of the happy and grateful arch- 
bishop. That seemed a magnificent financial feat in 
those days when war experience had not taught 
people to “give until it hurts” and when we were not 
yet used to thinking in billions but only in millions 
and hundreds of thousands represented a very large 
amount. 

Very probably the most profound interest in Car- 
dinal Farley’s heart was for Catholic education. 
In 1891 on the death of Monsignor Preston, Mon- 
signor Farley was named as vicar general. In this 
position he became president of the Catholic School 
Board and devoted much of his time and a very 
large proportion of his energy to the work of 
making the Catholic schools just as efficient as pos- 
sible. He had already had experience in his own 
parish of St. Gabriel’s in the reorganization and 


138 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


systematization of the parochial school and now he 
had the whole field of the archdiocese to labor in 
to similar purpose. He felt that even Catholics 
themselves did not appreciate how much Catholicity 
in New York was doing for Catholic school work. 
Accordingly the year after he became president of 
the Catholic School Board he organized the Catholic 
School parade (1892) which was a revelation to 
New Yorkers of all classes and quite as much to 
Catholics as to those outside of the Church. Two 
years later, in 1894, he organized a Catholic School 


exhibit which produced an even profounder im- 


pression because this showed not only the numbers 
that were being influenced by Catholic education but 
also the mode of that influence and how thorough- 
going it was. After this Catholics felt justly 
prouder of our school system and non-Catholics 
came to realize that here indeed was a determined 
successful effort to conjoin religious training with 
development of the intelligence by means of secular 
study. 

What Cardinal Farley accomplished for Catholic 


education is briefly and succinctly reviewed by Right 


Reverend Monsignor Lavelle in his sketch of Car- 
dinal Farley (Paulist Press, 1919). As Monsignor 
Lavelle was one of those closest to Cardinal Farley 
during his life, an associate in many of his activities, 


ee ae 


CARDINAL FARLEY 139 


this paragraph may be taken as an authentic sum- 
mary of the cardinal’s relations to education. ‘He 
(Cardinal Farley) was impregnated with the con- 
viction that Catholic education is the greatest of all 
evangelizing forces, and he fostered everything that 
promised to strengthen and diffuse Catholic scholar- 
ship. In fair weather and foul he was a firm be- 
liever in and an unflinching friend of the Catholic 
University in Washington. He followed with inter- 
est the meetings and the proceedings of the Catholic 
National Education Association. He encouraged 
the colleges and high schools in his own diocese. He 
caused the erection of fifty new schools, and doubled 
during his administration the number of children 
studying in them. MHiis respect and love for the 
children was so great, that he never allowed an im- 
portant celebration to pass without having a spe- 
cial Mass sung and attended by the children and 
their teachers, alone. He assigned his senior Vicar 
General to the presidency of the Catholic School 
Board; caused monthly meetings to be held; and 
provided competent superintendents for the regular 
Visitation, inspection and examination of every 
school. He also was the father of “The Workers 
for God and Country,’ an association of Catholic 
public-school teachers, two thousand in number, for 
the religious education of the children of newly- 


140 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


arrived foreign people, who had been unreached by 
either the Catholic day schools or Sunday-schools.”’ 

Cardinal Farley’s one ambition as Archbishop of 
New York, which he became in September, 1902, 
was to make his archdiocese just as perfect an or- 
ganic member of the Catholic Church as it could be 
made. He had no ulterior ambition. He cared 
little for personal prestige. He wanted to feel that 
he was fulfilling the duties which devolved upon him 
just as perfectly as possible. His personality was 
so attractive that he won men to second his efforts 


very cordially. When he succeeded to the arch- 


bishopric of New York it was rent with disunion 
and feuds among the clergy because of unfortunate 
divisions of opinion on certain political and economic 
questions. Under his predecessor these had grown 
more divisive as time went on. Archbishop Farley 
soon proved an ideal appeaser of the troubles. 

He felt that a number of the clergy who had been 
in disagreement with his predecessor were deeply 
conscientious in their conduct and had been sup- 
ported by the best of motives. He knew all of them 


personally quite well and he felt that many of them 


had done such thoroughgoing work for the Church 
that instead of anything like ecclesiastical censure 
they rather deserved ecclesiastical preferment. He 
felt that such preferment by rewarding them for the 


CARDINAL FARLEY 141 


past would make them more zealous in efforts for 
the Church’s glory and benefit in the future. On 
one of his early visits to Rome then as Archbishop 
of New York he asked and obtained from the Pope 
a series of monsignorates for these older men of his 
diocese. The monsignorial dignity was not as famil- 
iar in America at that time as it has since become. 
Indeed it was Cardinal Farley’s recognition of the 
fact that pastors of long and faithful service de- 
served some such official recognition that properly 
introduced the dignity into the American Church. 
Probably no one was half so much surprised at the 
ecclesiastical honors which were accorded as some 
of the men to whom they came, for not a few of 
them had the feeling that they were not in favor 
with their ecclesiastical superiors though they had 
undoubtedly tried to do their duty as they saw it. 
This recognition of their good faith and faithful 
service in pastoral duty won them over and made a 
new era in the history of the archdiocese of New 
York. 

It was when these new monsignori blossomed out 
in all the effulgence of their purple rabbis that his 
grace, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, the irrepres- 
sible Archbishop O’Ryan, with a humorous twinkle 
in his eye said to his grace of New York, “I under- 
stand, your grace, that since your recent visit to 


142 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Rome half of your diocese has become purple and 
the other half blue.’ Jokes of this kind in ecclesias- 
tical matters are supposed by some religious-minded 
people to be scarcely in good taste. Religion is 
supposed to be a very serious thing. No one would 
appreciate however better the humor in the expres- 
sion and the humorous twinkle in the eye of his col- 
league of Philadelphia than Archbishop Farley. 
Catholic churchmen are very prone to see the humor 
of situations. Indeed no set of men that I know 
appreciates humor better than they do. It is per- 
fectly possible to take religion too seriously. Man 
is a risible animal, in a certain sense at least, is as 
good a definition as that he is a rational animal. 
The very use of reason demands that we shall see 
the incongruities of things which constitute the basis 
of human nature, that combination of animal and 
spiritual elements that makes man so incongruous a 
creature in many ways. ‘This often seems hard for 
people to understand who think that religion is a 
very solemn affair and that religious dignitaries must 
be constantly in serious mood. To know Catholic 
prelates even a little intimately is to be persuaded 
that quiet humor and religion go hand in hand. 
Horace’s dictum, ridentem dicere vera quid vetat— 
to smile and tell the truth what harm ?—might well 
be the motto of many a Catholic bishop. In no one 


CARDINAL FARLEY 143 


was this better exemplified than in Cardinal Farley, 
and he could be humorous himself and enjoy the 
humor of others thoroughly. 

As archbishop, John Farley proved to be not only 
public spirited but internationally minded. Prob- 
ably the most striking demonstration of this is to be 
found in the immense mass meeting which he or- 
ganized in New York in 1905 at the Hippodrome 
in order to make a determined protest against the 
persecutory laws which the French Parliament were 
at that time striving to impose upon the Church 
in France. On that occasion the immense audi- 
torium of the Hippodrome was thronged even be- 
yond its capacity so that there was some solicitude 
over the numbers who were packed into it, but 
more than six times as many, calculated to be over 
30,000, tried to get in for the meeting. The pro- 
tests made by some of the most distinguished laymen 
specially chosen from among the representative 
Catholics of New York City were thoroughly dig- 
nified but eminently forcible and carried a great deal 
of moral weight with them. ‘The newspaper reports 
of the meeting were large and details of it were 
published all over the world. ‘There is no doubt at 
all that these produced an almost immediate effect 
and probably put an end to further legislation along _ 
the same line and even modified the application of 


1444 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


such laws as had been passed so that they were not 
carried out with the rigor that would otherwise 
almost inevitably have been exercised. The Roman 
authorities recognized that here had been a worthy 
exercise of episcopal prudence and influence in 
America carried out with devoted zeal yet pregnant 
with excellent effect for the cause of the Church. 

Cardinal Farley’s influence in the preliminary 
movement for the bringing out of the Catholic En- 
cyclopedia and above all his cordial patronage and 
sympathy during the progress of the work did much 
to make that work the magnificent success that it 
was. It was not until after he had called a meeting 
in his own house at which he strongly endorsed the 
project, himself pledged $5,000 and called for sub- 
scriptions, that it became perfectly clear that a 
definite beginning had been made. ‘That gave the 
signal for the holding of meetings in other dioceses 
at which subscriptions were taken so generously that 
there could be no further doubt of the success of the 
work. 

All during the course of its publication as the 
archbishop of the diocese in which the work was 
published Cardinal Farley continued his hearty ap- 
proval. He showed such confidence in the editors 
and such eagerness to facilitate their purposes that 
he actually constituted them their own censors. 


CARDINAL FARLEY 145 


This was all the more noteworthy because at the 
moment there were rather serious dicussions some- 
times rising to the plane of bitter disputes over mat- 
ters of doctrine and even the most correct writers 
were sometimes in danger of being considered in- 
correct if not un-Catholic in their statements. After 
all it may be well to recall that terms in theology 
often come to have a modification of meaning that 
sometimes makes them seem to convey a very differ- 
ent significance from what was intended by the 
writer. As a result of this even the greatest theo- 
logians of the Church have sometimes had to make 
corrections and additions and even Doctors of the 
Church have for a time been under condemnation 
through no fault of theirs. 

Cardinal Farley trusted the editors of the Ency- 
clopedia in this regard so absolutely that even when 
in order to reassure correctness of doctrine in every 
particular the Holy See instructed the bishops of 
the Catholic world to appoint committees for this 
purpose in their dioceses, His Eminence of New 
York still left it to the judgment and discretion of 
the editors to determine what articles were to be 
submitted to this committee. Any one who knows 
how difficult a matter the editorship of a great 
encyclopedia is will appreciate at once how much 
this largeness of sympathy with the editors and his 


1446 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


unswerving confidence in them facilitated their great 
work which was crowned with such eminent success. 
His noble conception of the work and his complete 
reliance on the editors under such difficult conditions 
was an extraordinarily broad and brave thing to do 
and amply deserves that the cardinal should be . 
thought of as the founder of the Catholic Encyclo- 
pedia. 

No one was prouder of the achievement than he 
when it was completed. It represented an extraor- 
dinary marshaling of the scholarship of the Cath- 
olic Church throughout the world that made the 
English-speaking peoples understand better than 
ever before the greatness of the old Church. Prac- 
tically every bishop in every English-speaking coun- 
try, and over a thousand scholars, priests and 
laymen, in forty-three different countries codperated 
in the production of this work. As Goyau, the dis- 
tinguished French litterateur said of it, “It mar- 
shalled the Catholic intellectual forces of the 
modern world, as the Crusades had marshalled the 
Catholic military forces of the Middle Ages.”” How 
much of this is owed to Cardinal Farley and the 
breadth of his sympathy with the work and his 
largeness of mind and fearlessness of purpose should 
be recognized by all. 

In his position as Archbishop of New York he 


CARDINAL FARLEY 147 


was a magnificent organizer. As one who was clos- 
est to him said, “He was aided in this by a keen 
sense of the importance of great occasions.” He 
knew when and how to make an appeal to his people 
to show their enthusiastic fidelity to the Church and 
when he called upon them to exhibit their loyalty 
he met with a marvelous response. In 1908 oc- 
curred the Centenary of the diocese of New York. 
It might very well have been observed merely as a 
New York affair but that would not satisfy Arch- 
bishop Farley and he saw how much of an oppor- 
tunity there was in it to make his people realize 
the progress that had been made in a hundred years 
and still more the present position of the Church. 
He put a touch of internationalism into it that at 
once attracted attention by inviting Cardinal Logue, 
Archbishop of Armagh and direct successor of St. 
Patrick, the prelate in whose archdiocese the car- 
dinal himself had been born, to come to New York 
to celebrate the Mass and to be the honored guest 
of the occasion. Nothing could have been more 
appropriate than that this occupant of the See of 
St. Patrick in our day should now grace with his 
presence the celebration of a hundred years of 
Church life in this great diocese of the West, whose 
cathedral was under the invocation of the great 
apostle of the Irish. 


1448 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


The festivities in connection with the celebration 
lasted a full week, every day of which had its spe- 
cial observance and its appeal to some special class 
in the Catholic community. ‘The religious were 
invited to come to the Cathedral, the children 
had their day, and the priests theirs. The celebra- 
tion closed with a laymen’s parade in which many of 
the next day’s newspapers declared that some 50,000 
men were in line. New York had probably never 
witnessed a procession the equal of this for im- 
pressiveness. The route of the procession was lined 
with Catholics and non-Catholics many rows deep 
to see this testimony on the part of New York Cath- 
olic gentlemen to their great archdiocese and its 
head. Such events produce a much wider effect than 
might be thought in making people reflect upon the 
place of the Church in American life and above all 
in strengthening the faith of those who have any 
part in the celebration, and in reviving the faith of 
those on whom modern materialistic thought and 
the sordid interests of life have brought some eclipse 
of their loyalty and adhesion to the Church. 

After a triumph like this it might seem as though 
the archbishop would prudently rest on the laurels 
of such a success and leave to other men opportuni- 
ties to rival it in the future. Only two years later 
however Archbishop Farley planned the celebration 


CARDINAL FARLEY 149 


of the consecration of the cathedral in 1910 and 
if possible attracted even more attention than the 
celebration of the Centenary. On this occasion he 
invited the Holy Father, the Pope, to be represented 
by special delegate and Cardinal Vanutelli, one of 
the most important members of the Papal Curia 
came to America to celebrate the Mass with Car- 
dinals Gibbons and Logue present in the sanctuary, 
during the celebration. This occasion which might 
have been scarcely more than a family matter for 
the priests of the diocese and the people of the 
cathedral parish came as a result to take on almost 
an international aspect and attracted national atten- 
tion throughout the United States. The effect on 
Catholics was noteworthy and made them feel that 
they were members of a great American branch of 
the Apostolic Church with recognition from all over 
the world accorded to them though only a genera- 
tion before they had represented scarcely more than 
a very small minority of the poorer people of the 
country. 

Six years later, when in 1916 the Federation of 
Catholic Societies of the United States held its con- 
vention in New York City once more Archbishop 
Farley, now cardinal, as he was not in preceding 
celebrations, insisted on the organization of a mag- 
nificent Church welcome for them. ‘This took the 


150 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


form of a High Mass celebrated by himself in the 
presence of Cardinals Gibbons and O’Connell and 
the greater part of the bishops of the United States, 
together with the representatives of the Papal 
Knights of St. Gregory from many parts of the 
country. The great mass meeting in Madison 
Square Garden at which the three cardinals and the 
governor of thestate of New York made addresses 
followed by distinguished Catholic laymen will 
always be remembered for its magnitude and en- 
thusiasm. The Garden was crowded to its utmost 
limit of capacity but there were nearly as many 
more who had come in the vain hope that there 
might be some chance in so large a place to find 
entrance and there were literally tens of thousands 
of others who would have made the effort to attend 
the meeting if they had the slightest inkling that 
there would be a chance for admission. In affairs 
of this kind Cardinal Farley’s power of organization 
was superb and assured success that reflected honor 
and dignity on the occasion. 

It was no wonder then that taking a leaf out 
of their archbishop’s book when in 1911 he was 
elevated to the cardinalate, others should plan to 
give him a worthy celebration on his home-coming 
from Rome after his investment with the insignia of — 


his high office. He arrived in New York January © 


CARDINAL FARLEY Ist 


18, 1912. He was received at the pier by the 
leading clergy and laity of his diocese. They led 
a procession to welcome him which accompanied him 
to his cathedral. As the procession passed up 
Broadway and Fifth Avenue the streets were lined 
for a distance of four miles with thronging multi- 
tudes whose ringing cheers gave testimony at once 
of their enthusiastic joy over his advancement but 
also of their intense affection for their own arch- 
bishop whom they had learned to love so dearly. 
All the buildings, public and private, on the way and 
all the churches were decorated in honor of the 
occasion. The streets adjoining the cathedral were 
packed with people who joined heartily in the glad 
_ Te Deum that was intoned for his safe return wear- 
ing his new dignity. The cathedral itself was 
crowded to capacity and the most careful regula- 
tions had to be made to keep it from being jammed 
by the crowds who wished to enter. Every night 
for a week the exterior of the cathedral was illu- 
minated with electric lights which brought out the 
beautiful lines of the great Gothic structure and led 
the eye upwards to the crosses pointing heavenward 
that crowned its spires. 

This was however only the beginning of the cele- 
bration. Some two weeks later, January 25th, his 
formal installation as cardinal took place in the 


152 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


cathedral in the presence of the Apostolic Delegate, 
the papal representative in this country, Cardinal 
Gibbons and some sixty of the most important mem- 
bers of the American hierarchy. ‘The same night 
there was a great reception at the Catholic Club 
attended by the élite among the Catholics of the 
city; probably one of the greatest affairs that the 
Club has ever witnessed. On the following Sunday 
night a more public demonstration to which thou- 
sands of Catholics crowded from all over the city, 
was given at the Hippodrome. Each one of these 
events seemed to surpass the other in the éclat which 
it evoked and made it very clear that here indeed 
was a man whom the people of New York City 
loved to honor. 

But what must be considered as very probably the 
most remarkable feature of the entire celebration 
of the return of the cardinal from Rome remains 
to be recorded. It consisted of a magnificent pub- 
lic dinner which was tendered to him at the Waldorf- 
Astoria Hotel not by his own people this time but 
by prominent non-Catholics. The toastmaster of 
this occasion was Hon. Herman A. Metz, Comp- 
troller of the City. Addresses were made by the 
Governor of New York State, by Mayor Gaynor of 
New York City, by the Hon. John Finley, State 
Commissioner of Education, and by Hon. Oscar S. 


CARDINAL FARLEY 153 


Straus, Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the 
Cabinet of President Roosevelt. ‘The affair was a 
magnificent success and attracted the attention of 
the nation once more to the Archbishop of New York 
and the loyalty of his people. It is very probable 
that the series of events connected with his home- 
coming as cardinal represents beyond doubt the 
most wonderful demonstration ever made by the 
American metropolis in honor of any individual. 
Every element of New York City’s people and every 
political party of importance was represented in 
cordial dignified greeting to this great churchman 
whose tender feelings not only for his own people 
but for the country and its citizens everywhere were 
so well-known. 

President Taft sent a letter of regret that he 
could not owing to circumstances over which he had 
no control take a part in the celebration. He wrote: 
“T regret I am unable to be present at the dinner 
to Cardinal Farley on his elevation to the highest 
rank of the Roman Catholic Church. The non- 
sectarian character of the dinner is an indication of 
the great progress we have made in mutual tolerance 
and brotherly codperation. Please present my com- 
pliments to Cardinal Farley, with whose friendship 
I have been honored for many years.” 

While it is not generally known, Cardinal Farley 


154 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


even during the period while he was Archbishop of 
New York made the time—no other phrase ade- 
quately expresses the special effort that must have 
been required—to do so in the midst of his many 
duties, to write the History of St. Patrick’s Cathe- 
dral (New York, 1908). Then years later while 
he was cardinal he wrote chiefly as a labor of love 
and reverence The Life of Cardinal McCloskey 
(New York, 1918), his distinguished predecessor 
in the combined positions of archbishop and cardinal. 
These books illustrate very well his patient devo- 
tion to any work that he took in hand, his thorough- 
ness, his simplicity and lack of anything like pre- 
tentiousness. The volume The Life of Cardinal 
McCloskey is really a valuable contribution to the 
biographical studies of the Catholic churchmen of 
America that bring out the place of the Catholic 
Church in the history of the United States during 
the second half of the nineteenth century. It was 
written as a labor of love in the midst of onerous 
duties of the archiepiscopate by one who had been 
himself a participant in some of the activities and 
who knew at first hand from those who had most 
to do with them and especially from Cardinal 
McCloskey himself the underlying significance of 
a great many of the events that are narrated. It 
makes a precious collection of data for the historian 


CARDINAL FARLEY 155 


of the Church but also for the general historian who 
will come to recognize something of the importance 
of the role played by the Catholic Church and her 
ecclesiastics in the life of the country during this 
period. 

While Cardinal Farley was so deeply intent on 
the thoroughgoing organization of his own diocese 
and on making it just as far as possible a perfect 
ecclesiastical organization, he was not narrow in his 
interests and above all he was not limited in his 
charity toward other great Church movements 
apart from those of his diocese. He recalled with 
the most ardent gratitude the benefits that had been 
conferred upon America and the struggling Church 
in the United States by the missionary efforts of 
other countries and above all by the money con- 
tributions that came to struggling Catholic com- 
munities in the United States from distant peoples. 
South America early in the history of Catholicity in 
the United States actually contributed many thou- 
sands of dollars for the support of Catholic mis- 
sionaries and the building of Catholic churches in 
the cities of this country. Many European peoples 
had done the same thing and had continued to make 
their contributions until the Catholic Church in 
America was well organized and could maintain it- 
self without difficulty. Cardinal Farley felt that we 


156 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


owed a deep debt of gratitude to other countries 
for this reason and that we should repay it in the 
days of our prosperity as lavishly as we could so 
well afford, now that our country was becoming 
one of the richest in the world. 

There is an organization in the Church known 
as the Society for the Propagation of the Faith 
whose purpose is to collect money in various coun- 
tries where the zeal and charity of the faithful 
prompt them to fulfill their duty of contributing to 
the support of missions in pagan countries or in 
localities where the poverty of Catholics makes it 
very dificult for them to support their own priests 
and church organizations. Cardinal Farley took 
this Society particularly under his protection and 
devoted the heartiest attention to making it accom- 
plish its purposes in a way worthy of this great 
country of ours. Contributions to the Society for 
the Propagation of the Faith in New York used to 
consist of a few thousand dollars annually, before 
his time and even this was considered to represent 
a generous interest on the part of our people. It 
seemed to Cardinal Farley entirely too small a con- 
tribution considering our wealth and the memories 
of old-time contributions made to us, so much more 
liberally. As the result of his interest, the sum raised 
for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith rose 


CARDINAL FARLEY Lea 


constantly during his years as archbishop until the 
New York contribution in 1918 was more than a 
quarter of a million of dollars. Even with this he 
felt that our contributions had not reached the limit 
but must continue to advance with the further 
growth of the city and the Catholic population of 
the archdiocese. 

He did not stop with this in his interest in the 
missions however nor feel that a triumph of this 
kind ought to be sufficient index of his interest in 
the propagation of the faith outside of his diocese. 
He loved to greet missionaries who came from a dis- 
tance and gave them every opportunity to collect 
funds in his diocese. So far from thinking that 
money contributed to the missionaries would be 
just that much taken from contributions that might 
be made to parish or diocesan funds, he was quite 
convinced that the habit of giving, thus fostered, 
would even add to regular contributions, but that 
above all a blessing from on High would help out 
the work of the diocesan clergy as a result of the 
communication of the spirit of the missionaries 
to priests and people so that the greatest possible 
benefit would redound to the Church. He often 
said that he felt that nothing could be better for 
the spiritual side of Catholicity in our country than 
to be brought in intimate contact with the spirit of 


158 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


self-sacrifice and intense devotion of every power of 
heart and soul that characterized missionary efforts. 
He was sure that he saw actual signs of the produc- 
tion of such an effect, of edification and intensifica- 
tion of faith that resulted therefrom, hence his ever 
increasing readiness to welcome the missionaries and 
give them such material aid as he could. 

When that modern apostle, Father James A. 
Walsh, the founder of the Catholic Foreign Mis- 
sion Society proposed to establish the mother house 
of his organization at Maryknoll near Ossining in 
the New York archdiocese, Cardinal Farley received 
him with open arms, encouraged him in every way, 
and provided ample assurance that New York would 
surely make its success certain. In the early strug- 
gling days the cardinal helped it in every way, 
above all by his personal interest, and he must surely 
be recalled as a very important factor for its won- 
derful success. ‘There is no institution in the arch- 
diocese of which Catholics who know as much about 
it as they should are prouder than the great mis- 
sionary institution of Maryknoll which is sending its 
dozens of priests and sisters to Korea and China 
during these recent years. We hear much of the 
Yellow Peril but one thing is perfectly sure that 
when the Chinese people wake up, as inevitably they 
must before long, to become a factor in modern civi- 


CARDINAL FARLEY 159 


lization, it will be an extremely valuable benefit for 
our western civilization that these missionary priests 
and sisters from the archdiocese of New York have 
been for years working to make Christianity better 
understood by the Chinese and to make the funda- 
mental principles of Christian civilization intelli- 
gible to them. 

All his life Cardinal Farley continued to be a man 
of the spirit and of prayer. He urged his people 
to the practice of devotion of various kinds but he 
was above all one who first did and then asked that 
others should do. He urged frequent Holy Com- 
munion, visits to the Blessed Sacrament and devo- 
tion to the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Virgin as 
the surest signs of devout Catholic faith, but also 
as the surest means of obtaining ever increase of 
devotion. It was well-known that he himself set 
a very edifying example in this regard and those 
who were close to him were well aware that in times 
of trial and difficulty he turned for help and strength 
and enlightenment to the Master. 

Above all he felt that the prayers of others could 
be of great help to him and that is said to be the 
supreme test of faith in prayer. He favored the 
foundation of chapels of perpetual adoration, that 
is of places where devout women succeed each other 
from hour to hour all during the day and the night 


160 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


praying for the benefit not only of the Church but 
of the country. He added to the number of these 
chapels and was always ready to welcome further 
additions to the contemplative orders feeling that 
while the religious who do the practical work of the 
Church are of very great importance, the suc- 
cess of their work and of the efforts of the clergy 
and their archbishop are dependent on prayer. He 
believed with St. Ignatius that while men should 
work as if everything depended on them, they should 
pray as if everything depended on God and then 
leave all to Him. MHence it was that Cardinal Far- 
ley tried to make his diocese just as far as possible 
a place of prayer and he ordered that all churches 
should be opened during the entire day and until 
nine o'clock at night. 

He believed that the success of his archdiocese 
depended to the greatest possible extent on the 
spiritual progress of his priests. He insisted there- 
fore that all of them should make retreats annually. 
As there were a number of Italian priests who could 
not understand English, he arranged that they 
should have a separate retreat by themselves and 
he tried as far as possible to enhance the interior 
religious life of all the foreign-speaking priests of 
his diocese. 

He instituted what is called the Monthly Recol- 


CARDINAL FARLEY 161 


lection. On the last Tuesday of each month all the 
priests of his diocese were invited to Cathedral Col- 
lege situated on the block just north of the cath- 
edral, for a spiritual conference followed by Bene- 
diction of the Blessed Sacrament. He saw to it 
that these spiritual conferences were of very high 
order and were given by men who could be de- 
pended on to lift up the hearts of those who heard 
them and renew their interior spirit. These Monthly 
Recollections he made it a point always to attend 
himself whenever he was in his diocese and was 
very careful that as far as possible his engage- 
ments elsewhere should not interfere with this 
simple regular duty as he considered it to be. He 
attended not only for the sake of the example that 
was thus given, but manifestly because he felt that 
he himself needed such an awakening of the spirit 
and that he was benefited by it. These Monthly 
Recollections beyond their immediate benefit became 
a strong link between the priests and himself and 
afforded an opportunity for him to speak to them 
with regard to any topic that might be of importance 
at the time. 

It was arrangements of this kind that made his 
priests feel deeply his tender paternal solicitude for 
them and his desire to make them just as perfect 
instruments as possible for the fulfillment of their 


162 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


religious work. The morale thus engendered among 
the clergy was excellent for its effect upon them as 
men and as priests. The result was a unanimity of 
heart and soul, cor unum et anima una, such as is 
very seldom seen, particularly where such large 
numbers of individuals are concerned. It was Car- 
dinal Farley’s own spirit shared with his priests 
that brought about this thoroughgoing concord in 
the diocese. 

Cardinal Farley was personally a very happy 
man. He had the faculty of picking out men for 
certain responsibilities leaving them absolutely to 
those responsibilities and insisting on regular re- 
ports which kept him in touch with their work. 
There was no tincture of worrisomeness in his dis- 
position. No one was more meticulously careful of 
the administrative obligations of his great diocese 
and no one more punctiliously prompt in attendance 
at meetings of committees and councils and he in- 
sisted on the same punctuality from others so that 
sometimes he was considered a martinet in the 
matter, but it was this very definite attention to 
details that lessened the burdens of all. His con- 
stantly cheery disposition to quote the words of his 
closest official in the diocese, “‘radiated its bright- 
ness on all with whom he came in contact. He took 
a special pleasure in his relations with his official 


CARDINAL FARLEY 163 


family to whom he was strongly attached and which 
returned his affection with cheerful and never fail- 
ing loyalty.” ‘To know him well was to be able to 
say that here was a man who had found his work 
and he had the blessedness of those who have found 
their work. With all this he was a first-class busi- 
ness man, one who in civil life might have been a 
captain of industry. 

His administration of his great archdiocese was 
of a character that united it wonderfully for the 
fulfillment of the Christian work for which it was 
organized. He introduced the practice that all the 
priests should have their first parish and experience 
of parochial work in one of the country districts 
around New York and after a reasonable period of 
service under rural conditions be promoted to city 
positions. This served two excellent purposes. 
First, the country parishes were given the benefit of 
the very highest talent to the great advantage of 
the people of the rural districts. But secondly, the 
practice was very advantageous for the clergy them- 
selves, for they learned their pastoral duties in the 
less complex conditions of the country parishes and 
yet had to go through some of the trials and diff- 
culties that are more or less inevitable in connection 
with smaller parish work. ‘This trained them in 
character for their city work and proved a sort of 


164 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


novitiate for the responsibilities of the large city 
parishes that were to come to them later. It was a 
source of great satisfaction to the priests them- 
selves since it made them feel that every one had to 
go through this routine which was at once educa- 
tional in mind and edifying in heart and soul and 
represented a real formation of character that made 
for their appropriate development as priests. 

The question of the care of the foreigners in his 
archdiocese was one which appealed strongly to 
Cardinal Farley. After all, there are spoken in the 
archdiocese of New York more tongues than are 
recorded in the Scriptures on the day of Pentecost 
and above all the eastern peoples have drifted into 
the American metropolis to constitute colonies of 
various sizes in the different parts of the city. Per- 
haps nothing will bring the diversity of these home 
to Catholics as well as Protestants more than the 
fact that though the Mass is usually said to be said 
in Latin in the Catholic Church, it is well-known 
that altogether nine languages may be used by vari- 
ous peoples in their liturgies, all of them under 
the egis of the Pope. Of these nine different lan- 
guages in which the Mass may be said, no less than 
seven are actually in use in New York. All these 
people have to have religious services provided for 
them in their own tongues and with the liturgies to 


CARDINAL FARLEY 165 


which they are accustomed in their native countries. 
Cardinal Farley created special committees for the 
intensive and particular care of the newly arrived 
foreign peoples. This redounded to the great spir- 
itual benefit of the people and of the diocese as 
well as of the city and country, for all of these 
strange foreign people were brought under the con- 
servative influence of the Church just at the time 
when their new sense of liberty and independence 
consequent upon their living in a free country might 
have brought them under the sway of anarchistic 
tendencies or of socialistic and communistic dema- 
gogues, ever ready to find followers among the 
newly arrived peoples in order to increase their own 
importance politically and socially. 

Cardinal Farley’s efforts were especially directed 
toward the care of the Italians for he had himself 
lived in Italy for years, knew the language well and 
was thoroughly sympathetic with the Italian people. 
Owing to political disturbances in Italy and the ham- 
pering of Church activities in the peninsula during 
the past generation, a great many of the Italians 
who came to this country were weak-kneed in the 
practice of their faith and needed to be cared for 
especially to keep them from drifting into infidelity. 
Nearly a million of Italian immigrants settled in 
New York during the last decade of the nineteenth 


166 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


century and soon began to multiply rapidly so that 
the Italian problem in the New York archdiocese 
became a very serious one. At the time of Cardinal 
Farley’s death the demonstration of how well he 
had reached the practical solution of the Italian 
question was to be found in the fact that there 
were nearly fifty Italian churches in the archdiocese, 
all of them self-supporting and improving in their 
hold upon the people in every way. 

The last years of his life ran parallel with the 
Great War that was devastating civilization at the 
end of the first quarter of the twentieth century. 
Just as soon as the United States entered the War, 
Cardinal Farley proceeded to exercise every pos- 
sible effort in order to be helpful to the country in 
its great purpose of making the world safe for 
democracy and finishing triumphantly the War that 
it was hoped would end war for all time. He nomi- 
nated immediately after the declaration of war a 
New York Catholic War Council to second every 
patriotic effort and to provide help of any and every 
kind for war needs. ‘The Council held its meetings 
every week. It accomplished a number of very laud- 
able purposes. It opened the Cardinal Farley Sol- 
diers’ and Sailors’ Club in 30th Street, the Young 
Women’s Catholic Patriotic Club on Lexington 
Avenue, the Catholic Hospital for Shell Shocked 


CARDINAL FARLEY 167 


Patients. It also provided means for the extension 
of the League of Catholic Women and furnished 
eficient workers and afforded substantial financial 
aid to at least a dozen other war activities in the 
more or less immediate neighborhood of New York 
City. Had the War continued these activities would 
have been very much broadened and rendered still 
more efficient, and the Cardinal himself was the soul 
of them all, and though he was now a man past 
seventy-five he was ready to spend the last spark of 
energy for the benefit of his adopted country. In- 
deed his efforts to be of help to the American cause 
probably shortened his life. 

His attitude of thoroughgoing loyalty toward the 
United States government was demonstrated very 
clearly when after so many well meant efforts on the 
part of our President to keep us out of the War 
we were at last plunged into it. Rev. Dr. Guilday 
in his brief sketch of the cardinal written shortly 
after his death which appeared in the Catholic 
World for November, 1918 (beside the sketch of 
Archbishop Ireland written by Rev. Dr. Humphrey 
Moynihan, for the two great prelates died that same 
year in the same month and almost in the same 
week) told in a single paragraph Cardinal Farley’s 
war attitude. When this paragraph was written we 
were still in the midst of the War and it was not 


168 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


sure but that the War would last at least until the 
following year. Rev. Dr. Guilday quotes the car- 
dinal’s saying, ‘‘We are fighting to uphold those 
ideals of political liberty and freedom which guar- 
antee to every nation, great and small, peaceful pos- 
session of its territory, unhampered development of 
natural resources and equal opportunity in indus- 
trial and commercial competition.” 

Rey. Dr. Guilday, who in connection with histori- 
cal studies referring to the archdiocese of New York 
had been very close to Cardinal Farley during many 
years while the cardinal was getting together the 
material for his life of Cardinal McCloskey, adds 
a comment on the cardinal’s patriotism that deserves 
to be noted because the writer knew so well the 
mind of the cardinal from intimate association with 
him. He said, “His constant prayer from the day 
that America entered the conflict was that the God 
of battles would give us justice, freedom and peace. 
John, Cardinal Farley stood for everything that 
America is fighting for—for the restoration of 
honor and rectitude among the nations of the earth; 
for the right of small nations in the pursuit of their 
own self-determination; for the emancipation of 
oppressed peoples; for responsibility in govern- 
ment.” 

Very few people outside the Church had any real 


CARDINAL FARLEY 169 


conception of the greatness of Cardinal Farley’s 
work. If there was anything in the world that he 
did not care for it was notoriety or what has come 
to be called publicity. While others crave so much 
he was not only utterly negligent of it but took every 
possible precaution to avoid it. He avoided praise 
and as Monsignor Lavelle said of him, ‘During his 
sixteen years as Archbishop of New York, he was 
probably never criticised in the public press notwith- 
standing that every day of his life was full of ac- 
tivity.” Almost needless to say this can be said of 
very few men who occupy a public position of any 
kind and it is the best possible testimony to Car- 
dinal Farley’s prudence of administration and his 
practical wisdom. No wonder that a well-known 
writer for the public press not over given to enco- 
miums, said of him the day after his death, “Cardi- 
nal Farley was a man perfectly fitted for his posi- 
tion.”’ 

What Monsignor Lavelle says of him, “There is 
not a faction nor a clique in the diocese he left be- 
hind,” is only another index of the whole-hearted- 
ness of the man, the breadth of his sympathies, the 
depth of his humanity, and the testimony that it all 
provides for the inevitable conclusion that “‘here in- 
deed was a man,”’ 


WILLIAM, CARDINAL O’CONNELL 
FourtH AMERICAN CARDINAL 


WILLIAM, CARDINAL O’CoNNELL, Archbishop of 
Boston, was born December 8, 1859 at Lowell in 
Massachusetts, the seventh son and the eleventh 
child in a large Irish family. ‘The cardinal is a 
striking example of that truth so little appreciated 
in our day that a great many of the men who reached 
distinction in the past were born late in families. 
Physicians who have looked into the matter rather 
carefully declare that the later children in families 
when father and mother are both healthy are usu- 
ally more stable in mental equilibrium, often physi- 
cally stronger and not rarely have more acute 
intellectuality than the early born children. A good 
many of the geniuses of the world have been born 
after the fifth in the family and it has even been 
suggested that one of the reasons why real genius, 
by which is not meant mere talent nor cleverness, is 
so much rarer in proportion to the population than 
it was generations ago, is that to a great extent we 
are missing the ends of the families. Marriage is 


170 





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CARDINAL O'CONNELL 






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CARDINAL O’CONNELL 171 


delayed, children are fewer and the best human 
products are not secured. 

The cardinal’s parents had both been born in Ire- 
land and were married over there and their first 
six children were born there. His mother, Bridget 
Farley, was raised in the charming little village of 
Enagh in County Cavan, where she came from a 
prosperous, landowning family. His father, John 
O’Connell, came of a well-known old family of the 
County Meath, though his branch of it was not 
wealthy. The young folks met and were married in 
Enagh and established their household there. When 
already they had six children conditions of living 
in Ireland became almost impossible. ‘The famine 
years followed the failure of the potato crop, for 
lack of food and because of lowered resistive vitality 
a murrain came over the cattle, and the future 
looked blank indeed. Their hearts were in their 
little home in Enagh which by this time had so many 
family memories clustering round it, but for the 
sake of their children’s future they decided to tear 
themselves loose from these home ties and emigrate 
to America. The sadness of such partings from the 
homeland is very little appreciated as an element in 
the lives of the Irish who thus bravely turned their 
faces toward the setting sun because nothing was too 
much to do for their children’s sake. 


172 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Lowell, Massachusetts, was selected as the site 
of their home in the new world because they had 
relatives there who had often invited them to come 
over to the United States for the sake of the pros- 
pects that were held out before their children. Be- 
sides, the bitterness of parting from home it was 
no little job for a mother to take six little ones 
across the ocean.to a strange land, especially in the 
vessels of those days, but Mrs. O’Connell faced 
the trial bravely. It proved a good discipline for 
some harder tasks that were ahead of her in their 
adopted country. She did not flinch at the pros- 
pect. 

They were able to buy a pretty cottage with a 
little garden, an extremely suitable place for bring- 
ing up their growing boys and soon other children 
were added to the family. Mother had a very busy 
time managing in her gentle lovable way all her 
children and was the head of the house. Father 
was a quiet man without much ambition, a student 
and a dreamer, who would sit over in a corner with 
a book and read after his day’s work was done. 
Mother’s powerful personality asserted itself and 
on a very limited income she was able to bring up 
a family of eleven children and give them all the 
advantages of a liberal education. Her seven boys 
still worship the memory of her and realize how 


CARDINAL O'CONNELL 173 


much they owe to her both by heredity and her ex- 
ample of indomitable courage. 

Father fell ill and was for months confined to his 
room and in those days when there were no trained 
nurses this added still more to mother’s tasks. At 
the age of fifty-six John O’Connell died. The fu- 
ture cardinal only four years old was roused from 
his sleep one night by an older sister and crept down 
stairs to his parents’ bedroom to see the body of 
his dead father lying on the bed and kneeling beside 
it, her face buried in the pillows, his heart-broken 
mother murmuring ‘“God’s Will be done.” ‘The 
older brothers and sisters were gathered round her 
repeating mother’s words. ‘[his is the first recol- 
lection of His Eminence’s life. 

Mother had to face the future for herself and 
her orphan children and every one had to help to 
the best of his or her ability. Education was the 
watchword in the family and William was sent to 
school in the old Edson School, a red brick structure 
on one corner of the South Common in Lowell 
which is still in use. In five years he finished his 
grammar school studies but attracted no particular 
attention and did not stand at the head of his class 
or anywhere near it. His mother wanted him to 
have a high-school training and he entered high 
school with a dread in his heart, for he looked for- 


174 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


ward to a repetition of monotonous grammar-shool 
days. ‘This was all changed by contact with Pro- 
fessor Edwin Lord, the teacher of chemistry, who 
had a genius for teaching. ‘This was the first per- 
son outside his family who deeply impressed him- 
self on his life, who gave him an impetus and an 
inspiration for study for which he retains a lifelong 
gratitude. Still when the cardinal talks of him he 
says a fervent ‘God bless him” for this teacher. 
As a consequence of his interest in chemistry the 
future cardinal felt himself drawn toward medicine 
as a profession but the decision of that question 
was in the future. That was the practical side of 
him but there was another side, that of the dreamer 
inherited from his father, and during one summer 
vacation he chanced to read Bryant’s ‘“Thanatopsis.” 
He had read it often before in connection with his 
high-school work but now for the first time he 
realized its poetic beauty. It thrilled him. He 
went home amazed and delighted with the new 
vista opening before him. It has continued to be 
ever since his favorite poem, often quoted from. It 
opened up the world of books for him. | 
After his graduation from high school the 
thought of becoming a priest came to him and 
though he felt poignantly his own unworthiness he 
decided to enter St. Charles College in Maryland 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL iy 


where young men were trained for the priesthood. 
The story of Cardinal Gibbons’ years at St. Charles 
may very well serve as the background for Cardinal 
O’Connell’s experiences there. Here young William 
developed the desire for study and a thoroughgoing 
awakening of appreciation for the value of knowl- 
edge. Instruction was rather stiff and mechanical 
but was thorough. ‘The teachers were the French 
Sulpicians with a long teaching tradition to guide 
them. ‘here was no elective system and the boys 
studied hard for the spirit of application was in the 
air. 

One thing the future cardinal missed very much, 
the opportunity to express himself in music. ‘The 
piano at home had been a favorite resource. There 
was no such thing as a piano at St. Charles but 
one day young O’Connell found a wheezy old 
melodeon in the cellar and sat down to play some 
of his favorite music. He still has a taste and a 
love for music that represents his best resource in 
the midst of a busy life. Some of his compositions 
represent real contributions to hymnody. He for- 
got all about the passage of time as he played on and 
the bell rang for study hall without his taking any 
note of it. Suddenly he realized that some one was 
near him. He turned to find that it was Pére Denis, 
the college president. ‘The young musician was sure 


176 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


that he was in for some severe punishment for a 
violation of the rules, but the president said very 
kindly, “So you play! I was in the chapel and I 
heard the sounds from here below. I had quite 
forgotten the little melodeon. I came down won- 
dering, to find you rapt in the music. The bell rang 
for studies but I decided not to disturb you. You 
love music. Well, that too is a gift of the good 
God. We must have the derelict repaired and then 
you shall come whenever you feel in the mood and 
no one shall disturb you, not even [.” 

Almost needless to say Pére Denis became the 
young student’s hero. He was also for many others 
of the students. His personality permeated the 
whole college. His Eminence still speaks of him 
to-day as the kindliest of men, and recalling his many 
acts of kindness says ‘‘He was a saint.” It is 
extremely interesting to realize how much the spirit 
of an institution like this may be impersonated for 
many of the students at least in a single one of the 
professors. Pére Denis deeply influenced not only 
the mind but the heart and soul of the future car- 
dinal. 

Application to study was at St. Charles the strik- 
ing characteristic of student life. Most of them 
had come from families of the poorer class, they 
were deeply intent on taking advantage of every 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL Lay 


possible opportunity to secure an education and most 
of them had firmly decided that they wanted to be 
priests and the stirrings of their vocation repre- 
sented constantly renewed incentives to go on with 
their work. During his first year at the college, 
young William O’Connell had devoted himself very 
ardently to his studies. The climate at St. Charles 
was not so bracing as that of northern Massachu- 
setts and after a while the young student felt the 
effect of it. At the end of the year he was pretty 
well fagged out but the vacation seemed to renew all 
his health and strength. He went back in Sep- 
tember to devote himself ardently to his studies, and 
as a result suffered from a breakdown which neces- 
sitated his giving up his studies for a time. Dear 
Pere Denis advised him to go home and recuperate. 
— It did not take long for home cooking and the 
open air life to restore him to health but now in- 
stead of returning to St. Charles he resolved to 
enter Boston College. He devoted himself to his 
studies at home and hoped that he would be able 
to enter what was known as “‘poetry”’ class or what 
is now called Sophomore, at the college. When 
he applied at the college Father Fulton, the rector, 
gave him an examination and after nearly an hour 
without telling him the result of the examination 
took him round through the long corridor and halted 


178 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


before a door over which was the sign ‘“‘Poetry.”’ 
As they entered the room Father Fulton said to 
Father Boursaud, the professor, ‘I have come to 
bring you a new student.” Young O’Connell had 
made the class. What was more, he had the pleas- 
ure of hearing Father Fulton say, to his fellow 
students, “If you don’t work hard the new man will 
take all the honors.”” Father Fulton who was after- 
wards Provincial of the Jesuits and visitor to sev- 
eral of the provinces in Europe was himself of 
deep literary bent especially interested in poetry but 
best known for his knowledge of men. 

Cardinal O’Connell looks back now and is quite 
ready to say that the happiest years of his life were 
the three that he spent at his studies in Boston Col- 
lege. They were not easy years however. Owing 
to family conditions William continued to live in 
Lowell coming to Boston on the seven o’clock train 
each morning. That meant rising at six or earlier, 
for he had to have breakfast and preparations had 
to be made for the day at school. A number of 
students came in on that train, others from Boston 
College, but some also who were in attendance at 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or at 
Harvard College as it was then known. ‘They made 
a happy, hearty group as a rule, thoroughly enjoy- 
ing themselves, but the more studious of them among 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 179 


whom was very often young O’Connell devoted 
themselves to the study of the day’s lessons. 

Boston College was then situated down on St. 
James Street where the high school still continues to 
have its classes though the college proper has moved 
out to University Heights, Chestnut Hill. It was 
the future cardinal’s habit to walk every morning 
from the North Station to the college though the 
distance was fully two miles. In the bitter cold of 
some of the winter mornings that walk must have 
required a good deal of self-control to take. He 
was young and vigorous however, he had fully re- 
covered from his breakdown and he thoroughly en- 
joyed the experience even on the coldest of days, 
while in the spring and fall the walk across the Com- 
mon was an ideal preparation for a day’s work: in 
class. 

He succeeded admirably in his studies and gave 
great satisfaction to his teachers. He devoted him- 
self so assiduously to his work that his good mother 
began to fear lest he might injure his health once 
more. When she found him at study even after 
midnight, as she did from time to time, her mother 
heart would yearn to him and she insisted, “You 
must stop now and go to sleep. Your eyes are 
more important than your books.” No one was 
prouder however of his success in his classes and 


180 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


she made it very clear to him that his devotion to 
his studies was one of her greatest consolations in 
life. When at the end of three years, at twenty- 
one, he graduated from Boston College he received 
the highest honors of the graduating class. The 
Governor of Massachusetts pinned three medals on 
him with the remark that he would need more room 
for medals if he continued to take prizes. When 
commencement was over his mother came to him and 
said “God bless you, child, you must be happy,” and 
the cardinal has often said since that that was just 
like her. ‘here was not a word about herself or 
her own happiness, always her children came first. 

Now the question of his vocation to the priest- 
hood came up for final determination and though 
the future cardinal still felt his unworthiness Arch- 
bishop Williams’ words over the dead body of the 
youthful rector of the Boston Cathedral, Father 
Smith, who was also a Lowell boy, touched him 
deeply. The archbishop had said after words of 
the highest praise for the departed priest who had 
made himself beloved by all those who know him, 
“May God send this Church and this diocese more 
priests like him.” These words brought the deter- 
mination to young William O’Connell’s heart that 
he would be a priest and he returned to Lowell and 
told his mother of his decision. There was to be 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 181 


no delay. He explained to her that he would ask 
the archbishop for adoption as one of the semi- 
narians of the diocese on the very next day. “Thank 
God it is settled,” is all that his mother replied. 
Archbishop Williams received his application very 
graciously and recalled that the applicant had re- 
ceived the highest honors of the graduating class of 
Boston College that year. Because of this, the 
archbishop offered him his choice of a seminary for 
his theological studies. When young O’Connell 
hesitated over the choice, His Grace said, ‘‘Would 
you like to study in Rome?’ There was nothing 
that the young student could wish for beyond that, 
and so it was settled that he should goto Rome. On 
his voyage over he landed in Ireland, visited the 
pretty Irish village where his mother and the older 
children had been born, and, after seeing London, 
and Paris in a hurried trip across the Continent, he 
reached Rome in the early morning and went 
straight to the American College. Here he had 
the opportunity of contact with some of the great 
minds of the Church. His professor in liturgy was 
a Greek archbishop, his professor of theology an 
Italian from Perugia, one of the most distinguished 
scholars of his day, while he was surrounded by 
men who were as varied in nationality and in speech 
as the crowd on the first Pentecost. ‘There were 


182 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Greeks and Armenians, Arabs and Syrians, Africans 
and Asiatics, men of every race from every clime, 
all gathered hearing the same doctrine and learning 
the same lesson. ‘The members of the different col- 
leges sat in groups so that the different uniforms 
made a very striking picture. 

Rome itself proved to be a great library for him, 
and he learned to love every stone of it, ancient 
and medieval, Renaissance and modern, as it was. 
It is easy to understand the broadening influence 
that some five years of study in Rome would mean 


for a mind acutely ready to receive impressions. 


After some four years of study, he was ordained to 
the priesthood June 8, 1884, by Cardinal Monaco in 
St. John Lateran. Toward the end of his course, 
young O’Connell’s health had failed so that he had 
not been able to take the final examinations for the 
doctorate, and on the doctor’s orders spent that 
summer vacation in the little fishing village of 
Anzio. He recuperated rather satisfactorily, though 
not completely, and returned to Rome to face the 
final year of work at the college. In addition to 
his studies he had been appointed first prefect of the 
college. In December, after two months of work, 
he was again in the doctor’s care, and it seemed 
better for him not to pass another winter in Rome. 
He had to give up in sadness of heart his remaining 





—— 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 183 


work at college, and this meant the loss of his de- 
gree, for he could not remain for the examination. 

His first assignment as a priest was as assistant at 
St. Joseph’s Church in Medford, Mass. His first 
sermon attracted the old pastor’s attention, who 
assured him that he had in him the makings of a 
good preacher. The young priest was particularly 
delighted with his work in the Sunday school. Chil- 
dren have always had a special appeal to him, and 
they gather round him in a way that shows very 
clearly that they appreciate his interest in them, for 
no one recognizes so soon as a child the fact that he 
is loved. This love for children has continued even 
down to the present day. Once in recent years, 
while on a visit to down-town Boston, the cardinal 
returned to his parked automobile to find a ragged, 
rather dirty little newsboy looking at it wistfully. 
‘Gee, that’s a fine auto,” the boy said; “you bet I’d 
like to take a ride in an auto like that just once.”’ 
‘All right,” His Eminence said cordially, “jump in.” 
But the boy shook his head and pointed to his many 
unsold papers and made it clear that work must 
come before pleasure. His Eminence bought all the 
papers, insisted on the little fellow getting into the 
automobile and took him for a long ride, which was 
thoroughly enjoyed by both of them. 

His pastor at Medford, Father Donnelly, having 


184 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


died, Father O’Connell was appointed the curate of 
St. Joseph’s, one of the busiest of the Boston par- 
ishes. ‘This was in a tenement district with many 
hospitals and jails, and there were many appeals for 
aid, physical as well as spiritual, by night and day. 
His first sick call at two o’clock in the morning was 
to the Massachusetts General Hospital to a poor 
woman burnt almost to a cinder, yet still alive and 
needing if any one ever did the consolations of 
religion. At St. Joseph’s the future cardinal was 
thrown into contact with all the elements of Boston 
city life and particularly those who needed his minis- 
trations. ‘There were no less than eight hospitals in 
the borders of the parish, a call from them might 
come at any time, and then, besides, there were the 
tenement houses from which night calls particularly 
were not infrequent. He had to be on duty prac- 
tically twenty-four hours of the day. He himself 
has often said since that this gave him his oppor- 
tunity to learn what it is to be a ‘‘working man.” 
Several years passed without a vacation, and then 
he went to Chicago to attend the World’s Fair. 
After a single day there, he felt an unaccountable 
restlessness and nostalgia. He had never been home- 
sick before, now something seemed to draw him to 
his home. He had meant to pass a week or more in 
Chicago, instead he took a train East and then 


CARDINAL O'CONNELL 185 


thought he might stop in New York for a few days, 
but a vague uneasiness compelled him to push on to 
Lowell without delay. He found his mother dying; 
his sister said that they had vainly tried to reach him 
by telegraph in Chicago, and that they had given 
up hope of his reaching his mother before her death. 
As he walked into his mother’s room, she stretched 
out her hand to him and whispered, “Thank God 
’ and within half an hour she was dead. 
Just what the experience meant psychologically or 
spiritually the cardinal finds it difficult to say, but 
it gave him the precious happiness of bidding his 
mother a final adieu, and he would scarcely have 
forgiven himself if his one vacation for years had 
deprived him of that consolation for him and for 
her. 

Meantime the Catholic Summer School had been 
founded, and after its preliminary meetings at New 
London, had been transferred to Plattsburg, N. Y., 
and Father O’Connell was asked to give a series of 
lectures there. ‘These lectures proved very interest- 
ing to the select intellectual audiences of the early 
days at the Summer School and made it very clear 
to Catholics from all over the country that here was 
a new intellectual light that had come into the life 
of America. On the completion of the series the 
speaker was waited upon by a committee from the 


you came, 


186 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Board of Trustees of the Summer School with the 
request that the lectures be put into permanent form. 
This proved to be his first published work, but has 
been followed by many others, until now there are 
some eight volumes* to the credit of His Eminence, 
all of them done in the midst of the very busy work 
demanded of him in the various positions that he 
has held. 

In the early winter of the year after his Summer- 
School lectures, 1895, there came a cablegram from 
Rome, which contained the very brief announcement 
that Father O’Connell had been appointed to the 
rectorship of the American College at Rome. He 
had not had the slightest hint up to this time that 
he was even being considered for the position. It 
was not an easy one. ‘The very existence of the 
college seemed even to be threatened for a while. 
Cardinal O’Connell has, however, never asked for 
an office by word or deed—and he has never refused 
to accept one when it was offered to him, no matter 
what burden it brought with it. 

A few weeks later Father O’Connell was in active 
charge as the rector of the American College. It 
had not changed from what it had been when he 


* The cardinal’s printed works consist of Sermons and Ad- 
dresses, in seven volumes, and The Life of Christ by Cardinal 
DeLai, translated by him. The discourses contained in the Ser- 
mons and Addresses are not homiletic essays but stirring addresses 
on the particular needs of the time. 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 187 


left it as a student a dozen years before. At his 
first interview with Pope Leo XIII the Pope said 
to him, “I am deeply concerned for the success of 
the American College, and I know that you will give 
it all your attention. You are young and strong, I 
see. That is well, for you will need all of your 
strength. You are rather young for the position” — 
this with a pleasant smile—‘“‘but old enough if you 
follow good advice.’ The Pope assured him that 
while there was a great task before him for one so 
young, with God’s help he would surely do it well. 
This was encouragement indeed. 

The new rector of the American College found 
the institution almost bankrupt. Fortunately he was 
able to secure sources of support for it and gradually 
to restore it to its place as a worthy representative 
of the great American republic in Rome. ‘The col- 
lege was sadly in need of a summer home, and 
Father O’Connell was able to secure the funds to 
purchase this, obtaining for the purpose a beautiful 
old palace, splendidly appointed, with a charming 
private chapel, surrounded by sixty acres of wooded 
park. The most valuable endorsement of his rector- 
ship, however, came in the increase from year to 
year of the number of students at the college. 

It was not surprising then that at the end of some 
two years Father O’Connell was summoned to the 


188 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Vatican one day, and as he knelt to receive the 
Pope’s blessing he had the happiness of hearing the 
Pope say, ‘We are very content with your work. 
It is excellent, excellent indeed, and now it is time 
to give you a testimony of our approval. I name 
you one of the prelates of the household of the pope. 
You are now Monsignore O’Connell, prelato domes- 
tico di sua santita,’ Father O’Connell was not yet 
forty, and the beginning of his ecclesiastical honors 
had come to him. 

His success at the American College continued, 
the college itself prospered, the number of students 
doubled, until it was no wonder that a prominent 
member of the College of Cardinals in Rome said 
to the rector one day, “We shall always consider 
you the second founder of the American College.” 
After the first two years, there was opportunity to 
relax, and the young monsignor, with the special 
honors of the Holy Father still fresh upon him, 
found that the social life of Rome now opened its 
doors to him, and that there were many distin- 
guished members of the Italian nobility as well as 
other dwellers in Rome who were glad to honor the | 
rector of so successful an institution as the Amer- 
ican College had now become. 

The college continued to be, however, his con- 
stant solicitude, but one that, instead of being a 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 189 


source of worry, was a delight to his heart. He 
has himself said that he probably never performed 
more congenial work than as the rector of the 
American College. arly in his career there he 
had gathered the students about him and declared, 
“T will never consent to be merely a policeman over 
you.” His conferences twice a week to the boys 
came to be events that were looked forward to. The 
college under his guidance came to be as successful 
in scholarship and in discipline as it was in admin- 
istration and finance. 

He had been just six years at the American Col- 
lege when in April, 1901, he received a brief mes- 
sage from Cardinal Ledochowski, notifying him of 
his appointment as Bishop of Portland, Maine. 
This appointment, so well deserved in recognition 
of his fine work for the American College, came to 
him quite unexpectedly. He was consecrated by 
Cardinal Satolli in the beautiful Corsini Chapel, and 
the co-consecrators were Monsignor Merry del Val 
and Monsignor Stonor. It was at this consecration 
that the social prominence which had accrued to the 
rector of the American College was very clearly 
demonstrated, for the solemn ceremony was wit- 
nessed by a very large representation of the great 
Roman families of the nobility who had been so 
friendly and hospitable during his stay in Rome, but 


1909 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


also by the American ambassador and by many mem- 
bers of the American colony in Rome. 

Bishop O’Connell was to remain in Portland a 
scant five years, but during that time he made many 
friends, above all among non-Catholics, though the 
religious atmosphere of Maine is inclined to be 
rather bigoted. The governor of the state said to 
him one day, shortly after he came to Portland, 
‘Bishop O’Connell, I think this state owes you an 
official reception. I have talked the matter over 
with some friends, and they agree with me, and I 
want to give you that official welcome.” “But I 
didn’t know,” replied the bishop, “that any repre- 
sentative of any church is ever officially received by 
the state.”’ ‘““That’s very true,” the governor replied 
promptly, “they never are, but I want to make an 
exception in your case.” So a few days later Bishop 
O’Connell, in his robes for an official ceremony, 
mounted the steps of the State House in Portland, 
was received by members of the governor’s staff, 
who escorted him to the executive chambers, where 
the governor awaited him, and bade him an official 
welcome in the name of the state of Maine. It was 
all most formal, but it has been said that it was all 
most unprecedented. Probably a similar event had 
never before occurred in this country, certainly not 
in that particular state, 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL Ig! 


During his third year in Portland, there came to 
Bishop O’Connell a cable from the papal Secretary 
of State at Rome, announcing that he had been 
appointed special papal ambassador to the Emperor 
of Japan. As the representative of the Holy See, 
he was directed to go immediately to Japan and 
there to enter into negotiations with the Emperor 
to arrange for the protection of all Catholic mis- 
sionaries in Japan. No one knew better than he 
how serious this mission was and how difficult its 
successful accomplishment might be. This was 
shortly after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, 
and the Japanese people, especially those in the 
cities, were passing through one of the periodic out- 
bursts of feeling against foreigners. Some mission- 
aries had been captured, and some of them put to 
death, and others expelled from the country. In 
all the western countries there was a feeling of un- 
easiness as to the situation in the Far East. It 
seemed as though it would be almost impossible to 
conclude such a mission satisfactorily. 

Fortunately, while Bishop O’Connell was on the 
way to Japan, the anti-foreign party in that country 
was swept out of power and a more liberal cabinet 
took its place. His mission, therefore, proved pre- 
eminently successful. Bishop O’Connell was re- 
ceived most cordially, and during the months of 


192 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


negotiations that followed he was frequently re- 
ceived by the Emperor and by other members of the 
imperial family. Every request which as papal am- 
bassador he made to the Japanese government was 
granted in full. Besides he was cordially honored 
in a personal way, and the Grand Cordon of the 
Sacred Treasure was conferred on him. His stay 
in Japan was capped by an elaborate official function 
given in Bishop O’Connell’s honor, at which the 
Prime Minister of Japan arose and proposed a 
_ toast to His Holiness the Pope. This was followed 
by a personal farewell address to the papal ambas- 
sador, in which the highest appreciation of his 
conduct at the embassy was expressed. The popular 
farewell expressed by an escort through the streets 
and by a large assemblage of people from every 
walk of life was almost unprecedented in the history 
of the country. 

Bishop O’Connell proceeded to Rome to make a 
formal report of the results of his embassy to the 
pope. He reached there in January, 1906. Im- 
mediately after the audiences at the Vatican he 
planned to return to Portland, feeling that his 
diocese needed his attention. On the day before his 
departure from Rome he received word of his ap- 
pointment as Coadjutor Archbishop of Boston. He 
was received very warmly by Archbishop Williams, 


CARDINAL O'CONNELL 193 


who had always had him specially in his heart since 
the day he suggested his going as a seminarian to 
Rome. His coadjutor was particularly welcome 
because the archbishop’s life was ebbing. Before 
the end of the year Archbishop Williams died, leav- 
ing the duties and honors of the archbishopric of 
Boston on Archbishop O’Connell’s shoulders. 

During Archbishop Williams’ declining years a 
great many problems had developed in the arch- 
diocese of Boston of which the elderly archbishop 
had put off the solution. All these now came to » 
Archbishop O’Connell for disposal. Parishes had 
become very large and unwieldy, divisions of par- 
ishes had not been made, many phases of Catholicity 
had been allowed to sink into desuetude, and a firm 
hand guided by a head of strong administrative 
ability was needed. ‘The present condition of the 
archdiocese of Boston as told in the second portion 
of this sketch furnishes the best possible demon- 
stration of how much he accomplished. 

Some of Cardinal O’Connell’s expressions reveal 
the man very thoroughly. He declared once, “I 
have known four popes, three of them intimately, 
and to my mind the greatest of them all was Pope 
Pius X.”’ He added, “I consider Pope Pius X the 
greatest chiefly because of the stand which he took 
toward all nations as regards diplomatic relations 


194 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


with the Holy See. He insisted that the primary 
duty of the pope was a spiritual one, and under his 
leadership the Church wrested itself free from 
diplomacy.” Cardinal O’Connell’s advice to young 
men was to have faith in God first, last and all the 
time, and with it what is called, and so well called, 
a saving sense of humor. ‘The cardinal finds his 
relaxation at times in the reading of novels, and 
especially those of an exciting character. Mystery 
stories of various kinds that are ingeniously told 
serve to distract him from the affairs of his arch- 
diocese when these might otherwise weigh heavily 
on him. He is a great reader and every week goes 
over a dozen or more books, skimming some, dip- 
ping lightly into others, but devoting no little time 
to not a few of them. He has a habit, acquired 
while he was abroad, of reading certain of the Con- 
tinental newspapers, and as a man who has made 
a success in three continents and who has a back- 
ground of broad interest in world affairs that makes 
his judgment with regard to current events of strik- 
ing value, he feels that he must keep in direct touch 
with world affairs. 

What has been accomplished in the archdiocese 
of Boston during the present archiepiscopate is very 
well revealed by the increase in the number of in- 
stitutions for those who are not able to care for 


CARDINAL O'CONNELL 195 


themselves, which have been erected and enlarged, 
and the increase in the number of charitable pur- 
poses that has come. In the volume entitled 4 
Brief Historical Review of the Archdiocese of Bos- 
ton, 1907-1923 (Boston, 1924), all this is summed 
up succinctly as follows :— 

““tst—there are now 53 such institutions in the 
Diocese as against 23 in 1907; 

‘‘2nd—this represents an increase of about 150 
per cent; 

““3rd—while the 23 in 1907 served 6 distinct 
charitable purposes, those of 1923 serve 14; 

‘“‘4th—of the 23 institutions in existence in 1907, 
19, or 90 per cent, of them have been supplanted 
by entirely new structures or enlarged very consider- 
ably to meet present-day requirements; 

‘“sth—the approximate valuation of diocesan 
charitable institutions in 1907 was $3,500,000 as 
against a valuation to-day of about $7,500,000.” 

The building up of the spirit has gone hand in 
hand with the construction of church property. The 
chapter called “A Spiritual Survey” in the historical 
review just cited is illuminating in this regard. In 
our time, when the complaint everywhere is of the 
falling off of Church membership and the lack of 
attendance at services, it is indeed interesting to 
learn that there is an average attendance of 800,000 


196 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


men, women and children at Mass on each Sunday 
of the year in the Boston archdiocese. The records 
of the various parishes show that there is an in- 
crease during the past twenty years of nearly 250,- 
000 in the Catholic population of the archdiocese. 
Not long after the decree of Pope Piux X on Daily 
Communion, His Eminence of Boston addressed to 
the priests and laity of his diocese a striking letter 
during the Lenten season on this salutary practice. 
The result has been that in the course of the past ten 
years daily Communions have mounted in number 
to three million in the year, First Friday and feast- 
day Communions have reached four million, and 
the number of Communions on Sunday has reached 
the splendid figure of ten millions. 

What is known as the Night Workers’ Mass has 
had the special solicitude of the cardinal arch- 
bishop. This Mass was inaugurated twenty-one 
years ago on the appeal of a group of printers and 
other newspaper employees. At the first Mass there 
were seventy-five present. In a few months, the num- 
ber doubled. It is easy to understand what a great 
convenience this was for these working people. 
After hearing Mass they could go home and rest 
perfectly quiet until midday on Sunday, making it 
a real day of rest and without any anxiety about 
having to get up for attendance at Mass at ten or 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 197 


eleven. In 1914, through the interest of the car- 
dinal archbishop, this Mass, celebrated at three- 
thirty, was transferred to St. James Church in the 
south end, where on Sundays and holidays of obliga- 
tion nearly one thousand men and women, represent: 
ing all classes of night workers in Boston, find a 
convenient opportunity to hear Mass and receive 
Holy Communion. 

Church societies have claimed the special atten- 
tion of the cardinal, for he realized the necessity 
for solidarity of men and women as a means of 
encouragement to one another for the right per- 
formance of their Christian duty. Example is ever 
so much better than precept, and social incentive 1s 
the most important element for conduct in life. 
His Eminence has frequently urged the pastors of 
his diocese to develop on broader lines the two 
religious societies of the Church, the Holy Name 
Society for the men and the Sodality for the women. 

In New England it would, of course, be expected 
that education would be the outstanding factor in 
the diocesan work, and such it has proved to be, 
and the increase in Catholic educational facilities 
and the way they have been taken advantage of 
during the period of Cardinal O’Connell’s occupa- 
tion of the position of archbishop has been very 
wonderful. There has been really an immense ad- 


198 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


vance, almost amounting to doubling the numbers 
of the pupils, in the not quite twenty years that 
have elapsed during the present archbishopric. 
What is even more significant is the fact that there 
has been at the same time a steady upward prog- 
ress in the development of high-school and college 
work. Figures in this matter are almost startling 
in their evidence of increased interest and growth. 
In 1908 there were 170 pupils enrolled in colleges, 
and in 1924 there were 1,149 on the rolls. There 
has been a very great increase also in the percentage 
of enrollment in both high schools and colleges in 
proportion to the number of pupils in the elementary 
schools. Fifteen years ago only a little more than 
3 per cent of the elementary school pupils continued 
their studies into high school, and less than four- 
hundredths of 1 per cent entered college. Now 
nearly 814 per cent of the common school pupils take 
high-school work, and nearly 1% per cent of the 
elementary school pupils go to college. 

Very probably the most interesting phase for the 
modern time of the development of the life of the 
spirit in the Boston archdiocese is to be found in 
the revivification of the old guilds which meant so 
much in the medieval Church. The most significant 
of the Boston guilds is the Guild of St. Luke, in 
whose ranks are gathered the Catholic physicians — 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 199 


of Boston and its neighborhood. This was originally 
organized some ten years ago and now includes sev- 
eral hundred Boston physicians, with a spiritual 
director, Right Reverend Monsignor Splaine, ap- 
pointed by the cardinal. ‘The cardinal himself acts 
as honorary president and has always been interested 
in the activities of the guild. Regular meetings are 
held, at which important medical topics that have 
a bearing on religion are discussed and the ethical 
principles of medical practice brought out. As a 
result of their association, Catholic physicians of 
Boston are brought closely together, and they con- 
stitute an important conservative element in the 
medical profession. ‘The tendency in medicine is to 
be run away with by novel notions of various kinds, 
and a balance wheel of this nature is extremely im- 
portant. In the past such practices as craniotomy 
on living children had been allowed to become seri- 
ous abuses when, as became clear later, there was 
no need for them, and when they represented grave 
danger to mother as well as the inevitable death of 
the child. 

One of the self-imposed burdens of the Guild of 
St. Luke is very interesting because it represents the 
sort of duty towards others’ and especially the be- 
nighted poor, that some people find rather difficult 
to understand. While Professor Thomas Dwight, 


200 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the well-known professor of anatomy at Harvard, 
was in charge of the dissecting room at the uni- 
versity, he made it a point to have Masses said for 
the souls of the persons whose bodies were brought 
to the dissecting room. They had died absolutely 
friendless, otherwise their bodies would not, under 
the anatomical law, have come into the possession 
of the anatomical department. Since Professor 
Dwight’s death, the Guild of St. Luke has taken 
over this charitable obligation, and Masses are said 
every year for the persons whose bodies find their 
way for dissecting purposes to the various medica] 
schools in the district. 

There are more strictly professional interests, 
however, that form part of the annual program of 
the guild. Public clinics are held twice a year at 
St. Elizabeth’s and Carney Hospitals, and they 
bring the members together for the discussion of 
medical and surgical questions. ‘These occasions ac- 
complish much to make their relations to one another 
friendly and intimate. Some of the most prominent 
members of the profession in and around Boston 


have been willing to take on themselves the added 


burden of holding official positions in the guild for 
the sake of the ethical influence it represented. The 
late Dr. John Bottomley, one of the most distin- 
guished of New England surgeons, was deeply in- 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 201 


terested in the guild and made many sacrifices in the 
display of that interest. 

The next most interesting of these guilds is the 
~ Guild of St. Appollonia which comprises the Catho- 
lic dentists of Boston under the egis of the patron 
saint of dentistry, St. Appollonia. The guild was 
organized five years ago and is the only one of its 
kind in the country. Since its formation the guild in 
cooperation. with the Forsyth Dental Infirmary has 
accomplished the great good work of caring for 
the dental needs of nearly 50,000 children in the 
parochial schools of greater Boston. Indeed the 
care of these parochial-school children was really 
the primary purpose in establishing the guild. In 
the public schools arrangements were made so that 
the children’s teeth are cared for and something of 
the same kind was needed for the Catholic parochial 
schools. Unfortunate habits of eating and espe- 
cially the elimination to a great extent of the tougher 
materials from the diet and the eating of ‘‘slops”’ 
has done much to make children’s teeth ever so much 
less healthy than they used to be and has brought 
about the occurrence of caries even in the earlier 
years so that the milk teeth have to be cared for 
scientifically so as not to permit injury to the perma- 
nent teeth as they erupt. 

In five years the guild has grown to such an ex- 


202 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


tent that it now includes over two hundred mem- 
bers most of whom have taken some part in the 
special work of caring for the school children’s 
teeth. It was hoped that this organization of the 
dentists into a guild in Boston would provide an 
example that would be followed in other cities and 
already there are signs that the splendid success of 
the Boston guilds going to be productive of corre- 
sponding organizations in other parts of the coun- 
try. In the meantime they have met with every 
encouragement from Cardinal O’Connell who has 
congratulated them very heartily. He has assured 
them that he knows that if they work together “‘out 
of this guild of a couple of hundred men will come 
a great work. You can inaugurate a work that will 
spread through every Christian country in the 
world.’’. As one who has been present at some of 
their functions to take a part however small in their 
discussions, the work of this guild appeals as a 
rejuvenescence in the best sense of the word of 
some of the old medieval guild work which meant 
so much for making life happier not only for those 
for whom work was done but above all for those 
who did work for others in the medieval period, 
which at last we are coming to understand. 

It is not however only among the men that these 
guilds with all their traditional influence for good 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 203 


as exemplified in the medieval period have been 
organized. In connection with the Cenacle as it is 
called, that is the religious congregation of nuns 
whose principal object is the affording of an oppor- 
tunity for girls and women to make retreats, a series 
of guilds have been organized among the women 
engaged in various occupations in the archdiocese. 
The chief retreat house of this congregation, called 
the Cenacle in honor of the Upper Room in which 
the Apostles met with the Master for his Last 
Supper, was established in Brighton by His Emi- 
nence, Cardinal O’Connell, on October 10, Ig1o. 
Almost immediately after the foundation of the 
Cenacle in the early part of 1911, three guilds for 
women were organized. These were St. Anne’s As- 
sociation for married women, the Association of 
the Cenacle for business women, and the Associa- 
tion of St. Regis for teachers. Through these 
guilds various groups of women and girls were 
brought to the convent every month to spend a day 
in prayer and recollection, to assist at a conference 
given by one of the clergy, and in this way to be 
_ prepared to fulfill the paramount regulations of the 
guild which concerns the making of an annual re- 
treat. The essence of religion is within us and does 
not consist in external observances nor in formal 
words of petition or even thanksgiving, but in such 


204 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


meditation of the mind and heart and soul as lets 
the mystery of things speak to us. 

In the following year, 1912, two other guilds were 
established and began corresponding good work. 
The first of these was the Guild of St. Genesius for 
stenographers and those occupied with secretarial 
work. One of the significant features of these guilds 
is the choice of.a patron for them and St. Genesius 
(whose Acts were probably written by St. Paulinus 
of Nola) was a soldier noted for his proficiency in 
writing, who became the secretary to the magistrate 
of Arles. In this position the decree of persecution 
against the Christians in the time of the Emperor 
Maximianus at the beginning of the fourth century 
passed through his hands and so outraged his sense 
of justice that he proclaimed himself a Christian and 
as a martyr was baptized in his own blood. His 
veneration is one of the oldest traditions in the 
Church for he is found in an ancient martyrology 
ascribed to St. Jerome. It is easy to understand that 
the inspiration of association under such a patron 
would mean very much for a sense of courageous 
facing of difficulties and especially for the refusal 
to have any part in any underhand public dishonesty, 
a quality needed in our day. 

The second of these guilds of 1912 was the Guild 
of St. Zita who is the Church’s model and heavenly 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 205 


patroness of domestic service. The organization 
of the guild represents one of the few attempts if 
not the only one made in this country to give a def- 
nite standing to those engaged in domestic service 
and produce in them the feeling that theirs is a vo- 
cation in life that one may be proud of and content 
in. In imitation of their patroness, St. Zita, they 
occupy themselves in domestic affairs since these 
represent such care for the necessities of the bodies 
of men and women as makes it possible for them to 
be occupied with higher things. ‘The labor of the 
daughters of St. Zita though merely»manual may 
thus help to increase the intellectual or artistic 
heritage of the generation, because it lifts the bur- 
den of ordinary everyday affairs from the shoulders 
of those who would otherwise find it difficult to 
secure the time for higher things. 

Still the spirit of the Cenacle proved inspiring and 
in 1914 the Guild of St. Agnes for high-school girls 
was organized anticipating some of the difficulties 
that were coming with the modern flapper and in- 
troducing an appropriate feeling of personal respon- 
sibility for example to others to these young women 
of the transition period. In 1919 the Guild of St. 
Imelda for factory girls was organized and the Guild 
of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin for tele- 
phone operators. At the beginning of the work the 


206 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


various activities were conducted under difficulties 
because of limited accommodations, but in spite of 
this handicap much was accomplished and in May, 
1912, under the inspiration and encouragement of 
the cardinal, a new building was opened. During 
the course of the rest of that year eight retreats 
were given with more than 200 in attendance and 
nearly 1,500 took part in the Day of Recollection. 
Every year since, the attendance has continued to 
mount. The number nearly doubled in 1913. In 
1920 altogether twenty retreats were given with 
nearly 1,000 retreatants and well above 6,000 took 
part in the Day of Recollection. Besides 120 pri- 
vate retreats were conducted. The numbers have 
constantly grown. In 1921 there were nearly 12,000 
who took part in the Day of Recollection. During 
the course of this work in the Boston archdiocese 
some 20,000 women have made the annual retreat 
of three days and over 100,000 have attended the 
monthly Day of Recollection. 

Almost needless to say this represents that per- 
sonal devotion and occupation with religious ideas 
and meditation on religious truths that lift people 
up above the sordid material world and give them 
thoughts that breathe and words that burn into their 
souls and that make life ever so much more worth 
living because it is lived on a higher plane. 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 207 


What was thus accomplished for the women in 
1910 had been anticipated by corresponding efforts 
made for the organization of a house of retreats for 
men under the care of the Passionists. In order to 
promote devotion to the sufferings of the Lord as a 
source of consolation in the trials and afflictions in- 
evitable in life, His Eminence invited these fathers 
whose life is devoted to the idea of making Christ’s 
sufferings better understood to establish a founda- 
tion in the archdiocese. At his suggestion the 
Nevins Estate was purchased on top of one of the 
hills in Brighton making a wonderfully convenient 
location and one at the same time retired and alto. 
gether suitable for retreats. The first chapel of the 
fathers was not unsuitably a stable which by ingeni- 
ous and loving care had been transformed into a 
thing of beauty. 

After the work had been in progress but four 
years the cardinal dedicated, May 14, 1911, the 
present handsome building where the first retreat 
was given on December 8th of that year. In the 
course of ten years the number of retreats had 
grown to three with an annual attendance of over a 
thousand men. During the same length of time 
nearly two thousand men made private retreats 
showing how close to the heart of humanity is this 
thought of withdrawal from the affairs of the prac- 


208 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


tical busy life to get a chance to think out the mean- 
ing of things. 

Altogether within a dozen of years well above 
25,000 men of all kinds have made retreats here. 
There have been business men and bankers but also 
newspaper men, professors at colleges, manual la- 
borers, railroad men, white collar clerks and artisans, 
often finding inspiration in the companionship of the 
retreats because of the many and varied interests 
which they represented. Retreats are not a time 
for hours of conversation but men become acquainted 
with each other and under such circumstances learn 
to appreciate each other’s point of view until there — 
is a real socializing of the men thus brought together 
that is very interesting and not one of the least of 
the good effects of the retreats. No very special 
effort has been made to produce this fine effect but 
it has simply been made known that those who 
wished might spend a week-end mainly devoted to 
prayer and meditation and yet with such relaxation 
of spirit as was of itself thoroughly recreating. 
Many a man has said that he got more benefit out 
of his week-end retreat than out of a couple of 
weeks of vacation. After all it is not doing nothing 
that rests men but finding diversion of mind and 
undoubtedly one of the reasons why a great many 
of the contemplative religious live such long lives is 


CARDINAL O'CONNELL 209 


because they find real diversion and satisfaction of 
mind in their quiet efforts at intimate communication 
with the Powers whose ordered universe around us 
is such a mystery unless understood in terms of the 
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 

With the very definite organization of the spir- 
itual side of archdiocesan work, it is not surprising 
to learn that the number of converts to the Church 
has gone on increasing until now well above a thou- 
sand are baptized every year. In order to make the 
coming into the Church of this large number of 
adults, many of them deeply intelligent, some of 
them at least thoroughly educated, all of them as a 
rule with the benefit of our American school educa- 
tion, properly impressive, the cardinal has organized 
the ceremony of confirmation for them each year 
in the cathedral. There is a special mission for 
non-Catholics given in the cathedral and at the end 
of this hundreds of men and women from all parts 
of the diocese are assembled and receive Confirma- 
tion from the cardinal archbishop himself. This is 
one of the functions that particularly delights his 
heart and from which he does not absent himself 
except by absolute necessity. 

It has often been said that besides the apostolate 
of the pulpit the Church in our day needs the aposto- 
late of the press and of the lecture platform. These 


210 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


have not been neglected in the archdiocese of Bos- 
ton. In 1907 the Catholic Truth Guild was or- 
ganized under the patronage of His Eminence and 
is entirely a laymen’s movement in the interest of 
the diffusion of Catholic truth. The well-known 
Catholic Evidence Guild of England was organized 
a year later and the influence of the Boston organiza- 
tion seems to have been felt in that. The idea was 
to go out into the highways and the byways and 
make Catholic truth known. Street campaigning 
was not a familiar mode of procedure in Catholic 
work and there were some forebodings as to the 
results. The auto van built for the purpose however 
has not only gone around Massachusetts but has 
actually crossed the continent, traveling from city 
to city for some 13,000 miles, and not one untoward 
incident occurred to make priests or laymen feel 
that the open-air campaign was inopportune. Dur- 
ing its seven years of activity about 100 meetings 
have been held each year and on the average 10,000 
cloth-bound Catholic books and a total of 50,000 
pamphlets have been sold annually. 

A second form of lay activity in Boston with the 
purpose of helping to disseminate truth with regard 
to the Catholic Church is the Common Cause Forum. 
Franklin Union Hall, in which it holds its meetings 
has a seating capacity of 1,200 and it is often filled 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 211 


to capacity and sometimes it is impossible for many 
of those who have come even from a distance to 
get in. A Catholic lecturer addresses the audience 
for an hour and then free discussion is allowed with 
the lecturer closing the discussion. “The Common 
Cause Forum opens its doors freely to all comers 
but it is the only large forum in Boston where free 
discussion is permitted. There is a chaplain who pre- 
sides at the meetings but though there is a time 
limit on those who address the meetings apart from 
the speaker of the evening, there is the completest 
freedom of expression. This seems to many people 
all the more surprising because they are not accus- 
tomed to associate the idea of such liberty of spirit 
and of speech with the Catholic Church and its ac- 
tivities. They forget that the Church is the most 
logical institution in the world and that while reason 
and faith are quite different mental attributes, Catho- 
lics are taught to know the reasons for the faith 
that is in them and any educated Catholic has a 
better conviction as to the meaning of life and the 
world around us, a better Weltanschaung than any 
one who has not received the training afforded by 
Church teaching. 

Very probably the most interesting phase of 
Catholic life in Boston is the number of young men 
-and young women who have sacrificed their worldly 


212 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


careers whole-heartedly to take up the special serv- 
ice of the Church. During the past fifteen years, in 
this twentieth century when life seems so vivid and 
when otherworldliness seems to many people so 
distant, over 5,000 young men and women have 
given themselves to the Church. ‘The number is 
increasing in recent years and not diminishing though 
almost needless to say the opposite experience is that 
which forms the subject of complaint in most 
churches. During the past ten years more than 
twice as many seminarians have been ordained priests 
at the Boston Seminary as during the preceding ten 
years. Besides large numbers of young men from 
the Boston archdiocese have entered the religious 
orders particularly the Augustinians, the Jesuits, the 
Oblates, the Passionists, the Redemptorists and the 
Vincentians. The city of Boston itself is particu- 
larly luxuriant in vocations to the priesthood both 
secular and religious. It is said that over 700 natives 
of Boston are ordained every year to the priest- 
hood. 

The archdiocese of Boston has become famous 
throughout the world for its contributions to the 
support of missionaries and especially for its col- 
lections for the Society for the Propagation of the 
Faith. It is no wonder that Cardinal Van Rossum, 
Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL ois 


who is at the head of all mission activities through- 
out the world, has more than once expressed his 
appreciation of the cordial relations which exist be- 
tween the Boston archdiocese and Propaganda and 
has pointed to Boston as a model diocese in the field 
of mission aid. There are branches of the Society 
for the Propagation of the Faith in every parish. 
How thoroughly alive to mission needs these are 
will be best understood from the fact that over 
$100,000 is contributed every year from about 150 
branches, an average of over $700 from each one. 
There has been a constant increase in the funds and 
the leading parish each year has made an ever higher 
contribution. In 1922, St. Eulalia’s in South Boston 
gave over $12,500 but in 1923 St. Cecelia’s of Bos- 
ton gave $18,500 and already it is clear that the 
banner parish will give over $20,000 a year. 

New England has always been interested in the 
colored man and his uplift, but it has remained for 
the Catholic archdiocese of Boston to be the leader 
in the provision of missionary material for the con- 
version of the negroes to the Catholic Church. In 
a letter from the superior of the Josephites, the Very 
Reverend Louis Pastorelli, who was himself from 
Boston, and Boston’s first member of the Society 
of the Josephites, whose work is exclusively as mis- 
sionaries among the colored folk at the South, he 


214 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


states that the members of the Society from Boston 
number seven priests, nine seminarians, and forty- 
five collegians. The Society has in all thirty-one 
seminarists, and one hundred and three collegians. 
This means that Boston has supplied almost one- 
third of the seminarians and nearly half of the 
younger men in colleges who are preparing for the 
work of the colored missions. Among the sister- 
hoods devoted to the Indians and negroes Boston is 
well represented and the cardinal encourages in every 
way the spirit of self-sacrifice which tempts men and 
women to give themselves to the great work of mis- 
sions among the colored races in our own country. 

In the foreign mission field Boston has been espe- © 
cially preéminent. Until the coming of its present 
archbishop, Boston had but one missionary in the 
foreign field. He was in India. Now there are 
missionaries from Boston in China, India, Indo- | 
China, Africa, Oceania and the Philippines. They 
comprise Jesuits, Franciscans, Passionists, Vincen- — 
tians, Marists, and Maryknollers. 

The greatest contribution to the foreign mission 
field was the Very Reverend James A. Walsh, 
founder and superior of the Catholic Foreign Mis- 
sion Society of America and of the Missionary Sis- — 
ters of St. Dominic, whose great work at Maryknoll 
(Ossining, N. Y.) is one of the special triumphs of 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 215 


the Church in America. Father Walsh was the 
Boston diocesan director of the Society for the Pro- 
pagation of the Faith (1903-1911) when he con- 
ceived the splendid purpose of founding an Ameri- 
can Catholic foreign mission society through which 
we would supply not only funds but men and women 
from among Americans for the mission field. ‘That 
work has been a wonderful success. Father Walsh 
wrote recently that more than one-eighth of the stu- 
dents in the seminary, one-seventh of the boys in the 
preparatory school, and more than one-third of the 
sisters vowed to the missions are from the arch- 
diocese of Boston. 

Another very interesting development in the mis- 
sion field undertaken during the present cardinal 
archbishop’s episcopate was the establishment of the 
Association of the Holy Child. A dozen years ago 
this work was almost unknown. Its purpose is to 
get boys and girls under the banner of the Christ 
Child interested in the question of saving children, 
both body and soul, on the distant missions. In 
1914 altogether only about a thousand boys and 
girls were enrolled in it. A single appeal to the 
parish priests and the sisters effected within a year 
the introduction of the Association to very nearly 
one hundred schools instead of the five to which it 
was limited before, and the enrollment jumped to 


216 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


nearly 40,000. Now there is an enrollment of over 
150,000 girls and boys, and the pennies of the chil- 
dren have mounted up from year to year until where 
ten years ago there was less than $2,500 a year for 
a great purpose, there is now some $30,000 ayail- 
able. ‘The interest’aroused in the hearts and minds 
of the children undoubtedly accomplishes even more 
than what their gifts mean for the youthful impres- 
sions are sure to be lasting and the habit of interest 
in missionary activities thus acquired will never 
die out. 

The work of the Society for the Propagation of 
the Faith has developed even more strikingly than 
that of the Association of the Holy Child. In 1898 
less than $1,500 was contributed. Last year the 
contribution amounted to over $600,000. Alto- 
gether over 700 missionaries and 232 dioceses and 
vicariates are being helped from Boston, and the 
offerings made during the twenty-five years which 
represent the first quarter of the twentieth century 
amount to over $5,000,000. Over go per cent of 
this has been collected and remitted since Cardinal 
O’Connell became Archbishop of Boston. The most. 
recent reports show a contribution to missions of 
almost $1.00 per year from each Catholic child, as 
well as adult, in the diocese. Cardinal O’Connell 
has encouraged this work in every way, and he 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 2177 


has insisted that there is nothing which means so 
much for the preservation and diffusion of the faith 
at home as a persevering interest in foreign mis- 
sions. As he himself has said, ‘‘Let us never 
forget this, to keep the faith ourselves we must 
propagate it.”’ 

Boston’s school system has not only been extended 
very wonderfully under the present cardinal arch- 
bishop, but there has also been an intensive advance 
in school work more than corresponding to the 
growth of the school. In 1914 the archbishop ap- 
pointed a Board of Community Supervisors of 
Schools. Each community teaching two thousand 
children in the schools of the archdiocese was given 
a representative on this board which consisted of 
twelve members representing ten religious communi- 
ties. The schools conducted by their respective com- 
munities are visited at regular intervals, local school 
problems are studied, and assistance and guidance 
are given to the teacher in the classroom. ‘The re- 
sult has been the development of an excellent spirit 
of codperation and a coordination of effort with 
striking results. In 1915 a special supervisor for 
the study of music was appointed by the archbishop, 
for whom music is the prince of arts, and the con- 
sequence has been that parochial-school pupils re- 
ceive a very satisfactory training in the theory and 


218 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


practice of music during their early and impres- 
sionable years. 

In 1915 a beginning was made to unify the work 
in the elementary grades of the parochial schools of 
the archdiocese. An outline of requirements was 
drawn up to be accomplished in each grade from 
the first to the eighth. After eight years of ex- 
perience with this, suggestions were asked from 
supervisors and teachers for the improvement of 
the original outline. ‘The curriculum in religion, 
English, arithmetic, history, civics, patriotism, 


geography, music, drawing, physical training and 


physiology and hygiene, has been elaborated in such 
a way as to provide the easiest method and at the 
same time the most thorough knowledge. Par- 
ticular attention has been given to the proper teach- 
ing of American history, civics and patriotism to 
meet the duties and responsibilities which life in 
the United States places on every individual. 

Over and over again Cardinal O’Connell’s recog- 
nition of the really worth-while elements in the 
lives of members of the priesthood of his diocese 


especially in what concerns the influence that church- 


men can have for humanity because of their ecclesi- 


astical condition, has been expressed so straightfor- 


wardly as to leave no doubt as to his own feelings 
as to these values in life. He has picked out men 


CARDINAL O'CONNELL 219 


who have lived quiet, simple but earnest, zealous 
lives to laud them as examples of what can and 
ought to be accomplished by priests who have the 
best interests of the Church at heart. 

The most recent striking illustration of this is 
to be found in what he said of the late Very Rev- 
erend James T. O'Reilly, pastor of St. Mary’s 
Church, Lawrence, Massachusetts, at the funeral of 
that veteran son of St. Augustine, forty years of 
whose priestly life was spent at St. Mary’s and 
who had come to be looked upon by all the people 
of Lawrence no matter what Church or creed they 
belonged to, as the pastor of all of the people of 
the town. His influence was very widespread and 
was of the finest kind. It is such lives as this 
that make the Church stand out as veritably contin- 
uing the ministry of Christ in the bringing of peace 
to men of good will on earth. 

Father O’Reilly had come to occupy almost na- 
tional attention during the I. W. W. troubles some 
years ago in Lawrence when during the strike, 
anarchy raised its head and men carried banners 
through the streets with the legend, “‘No God, no 
master.” It was then as on similar occasions be- 
fore in times of industrial disturbance that the per- 
sonal popularity of Father O’Reilly among the citi- 
zens of all’ classes and creeds proved one of the 


220 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


most efficient factors in the allaying of bitter feel- 
ings so that as the Governor of Massachusetts so 
well said, his personal influence did much to sup- 
press lawlessness, disorder and anarchy. 

In his funeral oration Cardinal O’Connell said, 
after having proclaimed Father O’Reilly’s great- 
ness of heart and soul, ““One of the most difficult 
things in the whole world is to analyze the secret 
of greatness. ~The world is often mistaken in its 
estimate of a man because those of the world do not 
always see clearly. Father O’Reilly was undoubt- 
edly a great character; when called upon to name 
the strong qualities of his character it is not diffi- 
cult if one knows the fountain from whose source 
these qualities come. He had that rare combina- 
tion of strength and gentleness that makes a great 
man. Many have one and lack the other. The 
strong are sometimes too strong and with the qual- 
ity of gentleness often goes that of weakness. In 
him whom we honor to-day the qualities of great- 
ness and strength supplemented one another.” 

While Cardinal O’Connell has thus deeply appre- 
ciated the labors of those whose long years of occu- 
pation in the archdiocese have given them a place of 
honor and reverence in the hearts of the faithful and 
his own efforts have been mainly directed to the flock 
entrusted to his care, he has not forgotten that 


CARDINAL O’CONNELL 201 


there are others not of the fold who deserve his 
solicitude and for whom he bears a definite respon- 
sibility. As was true in Rome and in Portland, 
those not of the Faith who have been brought in 
contact with him have learned to admire him very 
much and to appreciate his personality and to rev- 
erence his ecclesiastical character. New England 
has gradually been transformed in the course of 
time until the proportion of Catholics in the popu- 
lation gives them a political prestige undreamed 
of in the older time. Some of the states actually 
have a considerable majority of Catholics in their 
population. It is well then that the representative 
New England cardinal, the head of the hierarchy, 
enjoys the respect and esteem of Catholics and non- 
Catholics alike and that he is in such honor in his 
own country. 


DENNIS, CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 
FrirtH AMERICAN CARDINAL 


DENNIS JoSEPH DOUGHERTY who on March 7, 
1921, was created the fifth cardinal to be elevated 
to that rank in the hierarchy in the United States,’ 
was born August 16, 1865. His parents were then 
living within the bounds of the present parish of 
Girardville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, though 
at that time the parish of Girardville had not as yet 
been erected, but formed part of St. Joseph’s parish, 
Ashland, in the same county. Cardinal Dougherty 
is one of the small-town men who so often impress 
themselves deeply upon their generation. Not long 
after his birth his family moved into the town of 
Ashland where he lived until he was nearly ten 
years of age, when his parents returned to Girard- 
ville. 

He received his education until the: age of ten. 
years in the public schools of Ashland and until the 
age of fifteen in those of Girardville. His parents 
who were very faithful Catholics would surely have 
sent him to the parochial school had there been 


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CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 222 


one in the neighborhood. As it was they were ready 
and willing to make sacrifices to afford him a Cath- 
olic college education just as soon as he was capable 
of it and accordingly in September of his fifteenth 
year, 1880, he entered the Jesuit College at St. 
Mary’s, Bleury Street, Montreal, Canada, where 
he continued his studies for the next few years. 
This gave him an excellent command of French as 
well as a solid foundation in the classics. In Sep- 
tember, 1882, he entered St. Charles Seminary, 
Overbrook, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadel- 
phia, to complete his classical course and make his 
preparatory studies of philosophy in preparation 
for the priesthood. He spent the next three years 
there as a student giving abundant evidence of ex- 
cellent talents and solidity of character capable of 
thorough training. 

It is not surprising then that in September, 1885, 
he was chosen by the Archbishop of Philadelphia 
to enter the North American college at Rome. 
This is the great Roman mother of bishops for the 
United States and probably no better opportunity 
for the obtaining of broad culture and an exquisite 
classical background for education could be obtained 
than is provided by the years of study in Rome. 
The future cardinal spent the next five years tak- 
ing the best possible advantage of the opportunities 


224 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


for breadth and depth of education afforded by his 
environment. He displayed talents which showed 


very clearly that here was an exceptional man. He 


was ordained to the priesthood on May 31, 1890, — 


by Cardinal Parocchi, in the Basilica of St. John 


Lateran, the mother church of Latin Christianity. — 


A few weeks later his academic work of five years i 


in Rome was crowned by the reception of the de- — 
gree of Doctor of Divinity from the great Roman — 


College of the Propaganda. This is a very enviable © 


distinction which only the more talented and studious — 


net i a 9 


of the Roman students secure but which stamps a © 


man as of high intellectual ability and thoroughgo- — 


ing power of thought. Roman doctors from the — 


Propaganda are as a rule men who in later life © 


are the leaders among their fellows of the ecclesi- 
astical world and usually they are chosen as the 


teachers in diocesan seminaries throughout the — 


world and almost invariably are destined for places 


in the hierarchy in their later careers. Upon his © 


return to Philadelphia as might almost inevitably 


have been anticipated under the circumstances young © 


Father Dougherty—he was but twenty-five years of 
age—-was appointed to a professorship on the staff 


of St. Charles Seminary, Overbrook, the diocesan — 


seminary of Philadelphia. He took up his duties 


in September, 1890. Here he spent the next dozen — 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 225 


years of his life in the quiet hard work of seminary 
professorship attracting attention by the thorough- 
ness of his teaching, the absolute regularity of his 
life and by his devotion to duty and his spiritual 
mindedness. Here in the early years of the twen- 
tieth century his first advancement in the hierarchy 
came to him when he was appointed by Pope Leo 
XIII as Bishop of Nueva Segovia, Northern Luzon, 
in the Philippine Islands. In the course of his teach- 
ing at Overbrook he had become the professor of 
dogmatic theology there and had reached the cul- 
mination of his career as a seminary professor, so 
that his promotion found him ready for the new 
work that was assigned him. 

The taking over of the Philippines from Spain 
by the United States after the Spanish-American 
War had involved the American authorities in a 
number of religious questions in the islands. The 
Spanish friars had converted the islanders some two 
to three centuries before, and as Chief Justice Taft 
declared after his visit to the Islands as Secretary 
of War under President Roosevelt had gradually 
lifted them up from barbarism. The Filipino in- 
surrection however had brought embitterment 
against everything Spanish in the islands and the 
coming of the Americans made it utterly inadvisable 
to attempt to continue the régime of the Spanish 


226 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


bishops, in the Philippines. Within the first few 
years experience showed very clearly that if there 
was to be successful administration of the Church 
in the islands under the American protectorate the 
Spanish bishops would have to be replaced by 
Americans. Bishop Dougherty was the first Amer- 
ican bishop to arrive in the archipelago and found 
himself compelled to take up the solution of the 
very important problems concerning Church mat- 
ters which had become more and more involved and 
dificult of solution during the years since the trans- 
fer of the islands to the United States’ authority. 

By the direction of Pope Leo XIII Bishop 
Dougherty took with him to the Philippines five 
priests of the Philadelphia archdiocese who were 
to be professors at the diocesan seminary at Vigan 
in Nueva Segovia. ‘This institution had been closed 
at the outbreak of the revolution against Spain 
but its immediate restoration was indispensable if 
native Filipinos were to be trained for the priest- 
hood for service among their own people, which 
was the intention of the Roman authorities, as it 
has always been the policy of the Church. Almost — 
needless to say these men faced very serious diffi- 
culties in the task thus presented to them at Vigan 
under the severe political conditions in the archi- 
pelago. Besides the climate was very trying for 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 227 


men from our latitude though of course the Ameri- 
can priests had the example of the officers and 
men of our American troops who were submitted 
to similar conditions. 

One of the five priests who went with Bishop 
Dougherty, Rev. Father Cook, died in Philadel- 
phia a few years later a victim very probably to 
his apostolic zeal for the Church in the Philippines. 
The other four became bishops. Their names are 
worthy to be recalled because they represent the 
first great missionary effort beyond the boundaries 
of the United States of the secular priesthood of 
this country. They were the late Right Reverend 
James J. Carroll, promoted to the bishopric of 
Nueva Segovia where he succeeded Bishop Dough- 
erty; Right Reverend John B. MacGinley, Bishop of 

Nueva Caceres in the Philippine Islands, after- 
wards transferred to Fresno, California; the third 
was Right Reverend James B. McCloskey, Bishop 
of Zamboanga in the Philippine Islands and after- 
wards the successor of Bishop Dougherty in the 
See of Jaro, Iloilo, P. I., and finally Right Rev- 
erend Daniel J. Gercke, Bishop of Tucson, Arizona. 

As the American head of the diocese of Nueva 
Segovia, Bishop Dougherty found very much to do 
that had to be begun at once and continued ener- 
getically if his diocese was not to become rapidly 


228 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


more disorganized than he found it on his arrival. 
He rebuilt the facade of the cathedral which had 
been badly damaged by an earthquake and took 
up the problem of repairing and providing further 
buildings for the Catholic educational and chari- 
table works of the diocese. The intellectual side 
of his duties as bishop were however much more 
important in his mind than the brick and mortar. 
He set about immediately restoring the diocesan 
seminary at Vigan; for a supply of native priests 
had to be secured without delay. The buildings 
of the seminary had been occupied by United States 
troops during the Filipino insurrection against the 
United States and almost inevitably under the cir- 
cumstances had been greatly damaged. He set 
about making the repairs and reéstablishing the 
classes. 

Bishop Dougherty realized the need of very 
definite missionary efforts among the Filipinos, espe- 
cially now that they no longer had the advantage 
of the friars’ labors in their regard and after the 
disturbances due to the Philippine insurrection and 
the Aglipayan schism. Accordingly he invited into 
the diocese the Belgian Missionaries of Scheut 
whose headquarters are near Brussels. Long ago 
Cesar said after having been brought intimately 
in contact and fierce conflict with the people of Bel- 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 229 


gium, fortissimi omnium sunt Belgae—the bravest 
of them all are the Belgians. Such they have 
proved to be ever since and demonstrated the ab- 
solutely unchanging quality of the character of their 
people during the late War when the Belgians stood 
out so prominently before the world as the noblest 
hearted of all those on whom the burden of war 
was placed. Such they have been in the missionary 
fields all over the world and the trials and hard- 
ships of the Philippine missionary field were just 
what appealed to the indomitable spirit of courage 
in their work which is so characteristic of them. 

As a fitting complement to the work of the Bel- 
gian missionaries an invitation was extended to the 
Fathers of the Divine Word whose mother house 
is at Steyl, Holland, and who have proved such 
worthy rivals of the Belgian missionaries all over 
the world. ‘They are really Germans in origin but 
owing to the Kulturkampf this congregation of Ger- 
man priests was founded cross the German border 
in Holland and have proved the focus of attraction 
for a great many noble-hearted young German 
Catholics. Their work in the Philippines further 
exemplified their unselfish missionary zeal. 

The success of both of these sets of missionaries 
amply justified Bishop Dougherty’s invitation to 
them and his encouragement of their labors backed 


230 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


by their zealous efforts worked a veritable revo- 
lution in the feelings of the Filipinos with regard 
to the Church. Undoubtedly the work thus accom- 
plished meant a very great deal for the renewal 
of devotion and adhesion to the old Church among 
the natives. If this missionary policy had not been 
initiated and followed up faithfully as it was a great 
many more of the natives would surely have been 
lost to the Church. As it was serious leaks were 
stopped. 

After the Philadelphia priests were recalled home 
Bishop Dougherty invited the Jesuit fathers to take 
charge of the Vigan Seminary. It was particularly — 
important that the younger Filipinos who felt the 
call to the priesthood should be thoroughly edu- — 
cated but also deeply grounded in their religion. 
It was extremely fortunate then that Bishop 
Dougherty was able to secure the Jesuits for this 
purpose. Before Bishop Dougherty came to the 
Philippines the Aglipayan schism had worked in- © 
calculable damage to religion. Whole sections of 
the diocese with native priests at the head of par- 
ishes joined the schism and had taken over Church — 
properties. ‘This caused intense confusion among 
the uneducated Filipinos and brought disturbance — 
into the parish life of the natives in a great many 
places. A fervent priesthood had to be trained in 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 231 


order to take over the places that had been aban- 
doned by schismatics and then arrangements had to 
be made to secure properties that would enable them 
to build up the Church once more in the districts 
where the schism had made itself felt most seri- 
ously. 

There were many difficulties in the carrying out 
of this policy not the least of which were political 
because of the feelings that had been aroused among 
the natives and the effort of the local authorities 
to take advantage of the conditions in order to 
further foment religious troubles. On the plea that 
Church property belonged to the people, some of 
the municipalities throughout the Philippines had 
proceeded to usurp Church lands and Church build- 
ings. This represented an opportunity for political 
corruption and for personal graft that was too good 
to be lost by local town officials. 

In the confusion of the early efforts of the United 
States Government to bring about peace among the 
Filipinos the American authorities refused to cor- 
rect these abuses, fearful of disturbing further na- 
tive minds. Above all they refused to take any 
administrative action that would give back to the 
Catholic Church the properties of which they had 
formerly been the owners and compelled the ecclesi- 
astical authorities to have recourse to legal proc- 


232 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


esses to regain possession. This was slow and dila- 
tory and the efforts of the Church to go on with 
its work among the people were hampered in many 
ways. All this required patience and tact and the 
bishop had to do the best that he could under the 
circumstances realizing that very probably it would 
be years before such legal processes could be brought 
to a definite and satisfactory conclusion. 

As a matter of fact owing to the exigencies of 
politics in the United States the American govern- 
ment feared the political consequences of trying 
these cases until after many years. The intolerance 
with regard to Catholic questions which is so readily 
aroused in the United States, exemplified by the 
spread of the Ku Klux Klan even in our time, was 
twenty years ago even more sensitive to any pos- 
sible hint of favor on the part of the United States 
government toward Catholics than it is at the pres- 
ent time. When the cases were tried in nearly every 
instance the Church won its cause, but by that time 
many of the Church buildings had been partly or 
wholly destroyed. The protracted and costly ef- 
fort of thus securing once more the possession of 
Church holdings so absolutely necessary in order to 
carry on Church work effectively was an anxious 
and difficult task. To this the bishop was obliged 
to devote many years of his stay in the Philippines 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 233 


but any one who reads the story of the work that 
was thus successfully accomplished will appreciate 
better than could otherwise be possible the reasons 
why Church authorities should have felt that Bishop 
Dougherty deserved promotion. It was only a very 
proper recognition of his years of trying labor under 
missionary conditions that made the Roman authori- 
ties say to him after years, Amice ascende superius, 
‘friend, go up higher.” 

After about five years in the diocese of Nueva 
Segovia, Bishop Dougherty was transferred to the 
Southern Islands and made Bishop of Jaro in the 
Province of Iloilo, P. I. While this was a more 
important diocese the work that he had to under- 
take was almost more difficult and involved great 
responsibilities and trials. In Jaro the Aglipayan 
schism had created veritable havoc and was the 
occasion of constant strife and never-ending abuses 
on the part of the schismatics. Bishop Dougherty 
succeeded in clearing up this very difficult situation 
very satisfactorily. He proved that he had the 
power and administrative ability that stamped him 
as the making of a great churchman and his work 
showed that he had a fount of energy for the 
service of the Church that was almost literally 
inexhaustible. 


While bishop of Jaro, Bishop Dougherty com- 


234. OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


pleted the Jaro diocesan seminary. ‘This was nec- 
essary in order to secure candidates for the min- 
istry among the natives. ‘The seminary had been 
partially rebuilt by his predecessor, Bishop Rooker, 
after it had been burned to the ground. Bishop 
Dougherty felt however that the poor people must 
be cared for and that besides the apostolic labors 
of the missionaries there must be Christian charity 
exercised for the benefit of the poor. In the town 
of Iloilo, near Jaro, Bishop Dougherty built for the 
purpose an up-to-date concrete hospital, one of the 
largest in the East. Julian whom the after-world 
came to call the Apostate had while emperor of 
Rome declared that the Christians’ care for the 
ailing poor gave them the strongest hold over the 
populations among whom they lived. He even 
added that until the old Olympic religion could 
show similar proofs of beneficence for those in need, 
it would be idle to attempt a restoration of the 
old religion. Bishop Dougherty felt that hospital 
work represented a bond between the Church au- 
thorities and the people stronger almost than any 
other humanly speaking and therefore he was will- 
ing to make large sacrifices and devote some of his 
best efforts to the creation and maintenance of this 
magnificent hospital. It was placed in charge of 
the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres who conducted 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 235 


it in thoroughly up-to-date fashion. At the town 
of Molo not far away from Jaro, Bishop Dougherty 
constructed a concrete orphanage so that the young 
Filipinos without parental care might be brought 
up as Christians and properly cared for. ‘This 
orphanage was placed in charge of the Sisters of 
Charity. 

Bishop Dougherty was very much interested here 
as he had been in Nueva Segovia in the education 
of young women so he invited to the diocese of 
Jaro the Sisters of the Assumption from France, 
who erected there and still conduct a high-class 
academy for young ladies. 

Some idea of the extent to which Church prop- 
erties had been destroyed during the Filipino in- 
surrection against the United States may be gath- 
ered from the fact that the bishop’s house in Jaro 
had been so utterly ruined as to be quite obliterated 
so that upon Archbishop Dougherty’s arrival there 
not even the foundation could be traced. The 
restoration of this and of other Church properties 
was absolutely necessary not only for the dignity 
of the Church but also for the proper housing of 
Church activities. Shortly after his coming Bishop 
Dougherty secured for the diocese a bishop’s resi- 
dence in which the various functions of the diocese 
could be properly carried out. As in his former 


236 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


diocese of Nueva Segovia much of his time and 
attention had to be given to litigation over Church 
property. Advantage had been taken of every pos- 
sible opportunity to expropriate Church property 
and use it for the benefit of the municipalities or for 
private purposes. Litigation was slow and pro- 
tracted but had to be carried out in order to main- 
tain the Church’s right and establish precedents that 
would prevent further abuses. 

These various restorations and foundations for 
the seminary, the hospital, the orphanage and the 
schools for young women required funds that in 
the disturbed state of the country after the revo- 
lution were very hard to secure in the Philippine 
Islands. During the years 1912, 1913 Bishop 
Dougherty spent a twelvemonth in the United 
States collecting from the good will of those who 
knew the excellent work that was being accom- 
plished, the pecuniary resources that enabled him 
to continue the good work and its development and 
maintain the various institutions that had been es- 
tablished or refounded. He was extremely suc- 
cessful in this task and during the course of the 
next four years the diocese of Jaro came to be a 
model of its kind in the archipelago, one of those 
in which every provision was made for the proper 
provision of religious worship and charity and the 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 237 


maintenance of such good works as have always 
characterized Christianity. 

It was not surprising then that after some twelve 
years in the Philippines, Bishop Dougherty was 
transferred to the flourishing diocese of Buffalo, 
New York. He came to the episcopacy of this 
important See after twenty-five years of significant 
preparation. A dozen of these years had been 
spent in the laborious task of professor at St. 
Charles Seminary, Overbrook, where his success had 
been the result of constant devotion to the work 
in hand. ‘The next dozen years had been spent 
in the Philippines laboring at the difficult tasks of 
solving the serious problems connected with the 
change of government among a disaffected popu- 
lation where the bishop had to rebuild the church 
physically as well as spiritually in order to restore 
the influence which for centuries Catholicity had 
had upon the natives. Bishop Dougherty very soon 
made himself felt in the diocese of Buffalo. His 
chief material task there was to provide for the 
liquidation of the very large debt upon the new 
cathedral which had proved such a burden for his 
predecessor. His work in Buffalo was such as to 
indicate his administrative ability for a higher po- 
sition, so after two years on May 1, 1918, he was 


made Archbishop of Philadelphia, 


238 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Back once more on his native heath in the arch- 
diocese of Philadelphia the archbishop proceeded to 
set the various works of his great archdiocese on a 
firm footing and to reorganize the charities and 
the educational institutions of Philadelphia so as 
to make them as efficient as possible. Among the 
works that he thus accomplished are the liquida- 
tion of the debt on St. Vincent’s Orphanage, Lans- 
downe, Pennsylvania, the conduction of financial 
campaigns for the benefit of the Misericordia Hos- 
pital in which the Sisters of Mercy are doing such 
good work in West Philadelphia and for the Houses 
of the Good Shepherd of the Philadelphia diocese 
which are accomplishing so much for the reforma- 
tion of delinquents of various kinds among the 
women. ‘Then there came the establishment of St. 
Mary’s Institute for the Blind which was very much 
needed, for Philadelphia had always been noted for 
its special attention to all the problems relating to 
the care of the blind. Other charitable foundations 
followed. One of the most important was that of 
the Italian Colombo Hospital in Philadelphia which 
promises to be of so much service in taking care 
of ailing poor among the Italians, for it is under 
these circumstances particularly that their faith is 
revived, and an abiding sense of solidarity with 
Catholicity produced. After that came the founda- 


re 


Py. omy a 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 239 


tion of the St. Francis Orphanage at Orwigsburg 
where the orphans of the diocese can be cared for 
out in the country, under the most healthful and 
pleasant conditions. 

Education has however always been the special 
feature of Catholic work of the archdiocese of 
Philadelphia and Archbishop Dougherty proceeded 
to follow and expand the traditions that his great 
predecessors had established in this matter. For 
this purpose there came the erection of the faculty 
building and of a large annex of the West Phil- 
adelphia Catholic High School for Boys followed 
by the erection of the Northeast Catholic High 
School for Boys and of the West Philadelphia 
Catholic High School for Girls. In connection with 
these came the proper provision of early training 
for candidates for the priesthood through the erec- 
tion of the preparatory seminary at Overbrook. 
All of these are either now in course of erection or 
are just finished. Besides under the patronage 
of Archbishop Dougherty there came the establish- 
ment of the Assumption Academy for Girls at 
Raven Hill and of the Grey Nuns’ Academy at 
Melrose. In our day the education of young women 
is particularly important. Women are much more 
likely to be deeply influenced by their teachers than 
are our young men for it has been said by one of 


240 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


our great secular university presidents that one of 
the happiest traits of young men is their power to 
shed unfortunate influences in education very much 
in the same way that a duck sheds water. ‘The 
provision of thoroughly conservative education for 
young women is particularly important as is well 
illustrated by some of the radicalism that has found 
its way into colleges for young women in this 
country. 

A typical instance of Cardinal Dougherty’s in- 
terest in Catholic higher education for young women 
is afforded by the foundation of the academy of 
Miraflores in Peru. ‘The Peruvian archbishop re- 
alizing the need for Catholic higher education for 
women and the advisability of having Catholic 
teachers of English, turned to his colleague of Phil- 
adelphia whose experience in the Philippines had 
made him so sympathetic toward the problems of 
Spanish bishops, and asked for help in the matter. 
Cardinal Dougherty turned to the Congregation of 
the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who 
have done so much for education in the archdiocese 
of Philadelphia, and asked that they should send 
a community to Peru. A group of sisters volun- 
teered for the purpose and their work has been 
eminently successful. In the course of three years 
they have gathered round them some two hundred 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 241 


students for whom a new building has been com- 
pleted on Avenida Leguia that is said to be ideal 
for the purpose. The President of Peru and the 
Minister of Education were present at the dedica- 
tion of the building and the medal struck for the 
commemoration of the event has the names of the 
President and the Reverend Mother Superior as 
memorials of the international occasion. 

While thus devoting himself to the charitable and 
educational needs of his great archdiocese, the Arch- 
bishop of Philadelphia appreciated very thoroughly 
the necessity for providing for the direct spiritual 
necessities of his people. It was particularly im- 
portant to make it not only possible but easy for 
all the members of the Church to perform their 
spiritual duties without difficulty. The archbishop 
has brought about for this purpose the establish- 
ment of some sixty-four new parishes in his diocese 
so that there are very few places where the mem- 
bers of the Church cannot attend Mass and receive 
the Sacraments without any special inconvenience 
or any great effort being required. 

After a record like this of Church work it is not 
surprising that some three years after his appoint- 
ment as Archbishop of Philadelphia, in the early 
spring of 1921, Archbishop Dougherty was raised 
to the cardinalate by Pope Benedict XV. 


242 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


One of the most significant phases of special 
interest in Cardinal Dougherty’s life and one that 
deserves to be mentioned because it serves to il- 
luminate the culmination of his career as a church- 
man very strikingly is his devotion to her whom 
Catholics love to call “The Little Flower.” This is 
the loving name given to the recently canonized 
(April, 1925) Saint Thérése Martin of Lisieux in 
France. She was only twenty-four when she died and 
had spent more than one-third of that brief life 
behind the grille of a Carmelite convent. In spite of 
this fact which would seem to make it impossible that 
within twenty-five years after her death she should be 
known all over the world, her name is more often 
mentioned everywhere throughout Catholicity than 


that of any other woman of modern times. It is | 


probably true to say that during the year since 
her canonization as a saint more statues of her 
have been set up than of any other woman except 
the Mother of the Lord. The reason for all this 
reverence and admiration is not easy to find if one 
looks at the worldly side of it. Little Thérése, as 


she loved to call herself, did no great things from 


a worldly standpoint. Her life was mystically hid- 
den with Christ but was so strikingly beautiful that 
it has caught the attention of all the world who 
have come to know anything about her. 


a a: 
ay 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 243 


Her wonderfully simple life and single-hearted 
devotion to prayer for the benefit of others made 
her long before her cult was so widely propagated 
as it is at the present time a favorite subject of 
devotion on the part of the Cardinal of Philadel- 
phia. As a result of that he has become one of 
the most distinguished promoters of her cult. She 
represents above all the type of saintship repre- 
sented by those who are ready to give up every- 
thing that might come to them, even their heavenly 
reward if only thus they would secure the salvation 
of others. It is said that St. Ignatius Loyola once 
said that if it were the Will of God and would 
redound to His glory he would be willing to be 
damned. What the Little Flower said went not 
quite so far as that though at the moment of her 
death she declared, “I feel that my mission is about 
to commence. My mission is to make God loved as 
I love Him, to point out to souls my little way. I 
wish to pass my Heaven in doing good on earth. 
No, I shall never be able to take any rest until 
the very end of the world; but when the angels 
shall have said, ‘Time is no more’—then I shall 
take my rest, for the number of the elect will be 
then completed.” 

The very fact that the distinguished cardinal of 
a great archdiocese the course of whose life in many 


244 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


and various positions had demonstrated his capacity 
as a scholar, his ability as an administrator, his 
missionary zeal, under the most difficult circum- 
stances, his attention to detail in those practical 
affairs of existence, should be thus devoted to the 
Little Flower of Lisieux is indeed interesting as a 
revelation of the interior spirit of the man. As 
a professor of theology in one of the best known 
of our seminaries, as a bishop in the Philippines 
under the most trying circumstances, as an American 
prelate ruling an important populous diocese, and 
finally as the archbishop of one of the greatest Cath- 
olic Sees in the world and as a cardinal of the uni- 
versal Church, he has exhibited the most practical 
qualities, but in this devotion to the Little Flower 
there is a glimpse of the mystical side of the man 
and of his spiritual ardor. The fact that the Little 
Flower has been canonized when scarcely more than 
half the number of years have passed since her 
death that are under ordinary circumstances re- 
quired by Canon Law is the proof that Cardinal 
Dougherty’s sentiment in the matter is manifestly 
in harmony with the spirit of the Church. 

He had made his diocese a fountainhead of de- 
votion to this little woman, scarcely more than a 
girl, whom the Church has just raised to the altars 
because of the profound simplicity and self-abne- 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 24.5 


gation of her character. The sympathy that has 
created devotion to her in a few years all over the 
world shows how profoundly Catholic is the rey- 
erence for her which Cardinal Dougherty was one 
of the first high-placed ecclesiastics to take up and 
encourage. The life of the youthful Carmelite 
seems scarcely significant enough from a worldly 
standpoint to deserve such attention as is thus given 
to it, but the real significance of the life of man is 
from within and not without. Thomas a Kempis 
treats of the interior life almost exclusively in his 
Following of Christ which consists after all only of 
a set of conferences given to the novices of his 
order and yet his little book has been the most 
published volume except the Bible all over the 
world for these 450 years since his death. Our 
oldest university, Harvard, was willing to spend 
a large sum of money in order to secure a series of 
books about a Kempis though that little man lived 
some seventy-three years in the monastery of St. 
Agnes scarcely ever leaving the grounds of the 
monastery and yet seeing the meaning of life so 
clearly that 450 years later his little book is still one 
of the most precious that humanity has. 

The little Thérése of Lisieux like her sister Car- 
melite of over three hundred years before, the great 
St. Teresa of Spain, has demonstrated how much 


246 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the contemplative life can mean in producing a deep 
and lasting effect on the world in which it lives. It — 
has often been said that St. Teresa of Spain from 
behind her convent grille kept back the tide of the 
Reformation in Spain. That enabled Spain to ac- 
complish wonderful work just at the time when most 
of the nations of Europe were so sadly disturbed 
by the religious feuds almost universally occurring 
that their power of achievement was at its lowest 
ebb. Spain’s golden century of literature, art, arch- 
itecture and the arts and crafts came just after 
the Reformation and the Spanish Carmelite St. 
Teresa was a marvelous factor for its success and 
its supreme prestige. It has been suggested that — 
in our time when the material world is encroach- 
ing so sadly on the spiritual and making life all 
too sordid, that the example and the influence of 
the Little Flower, St. Thérése of our day, may 
serve to turn back the tide of irreligion or at least 
greatly help in this direction and thus provide an — 
opportunity for another great period of spiritual 
artistic and esthetic achievement. If this should 
happen Cardinal Dougherty’s early interest in the 
Little Flower will have meant much for the new 
order of things. 

Philadelphia is one of the greatest Catholic arch- 
dioceses in the world. It is among the very first 


CARDINAL DOUGHERTY 244 


in the number of its Catholic inhabitants but above 
all in the fine organization of the Church within its 
bounds. It has a magnificent group of Catholic 
charitable institutions of all kinds; orphan asylums, 
hospitals, corrective institutions and the like, and 
supremely well organized schools and high schools 
as well as colleges and seminaries. It is very prob- 
able that in practical Catholicity as measured by 
attendance at the Church and Sacraments in pro- 
portion to the whole number of Catholics, Philadel- 
phia stands out as’ one of the excelling archdioceses 
of the Catholic Church. For long it was the larg- 
est city in the country at the beginning of the his- 
tory of the United States but it has continued to 
orow constantly and persistently and its conserva- 
tism has done much to foster the Church and its 
srowth. It is true that here the Know-Nothing 
riots were at their worst and churches and convents 
burned, but after that spasm of intolerance Phila- 
delphia has continued to be a very favorable set- 
ting for the continuous growth of the Church. It 
was to this promising diocese that Bishop Dough- 
erty after his missionary experience in the Philip- 
pines and the further development of character and 
demonstration of ability that came with the impor- 
tant See of Buffalo was sent by his ecclesiastical 
superiors in Rome because they felt that here was 


248 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


a man who had accomplished difficult tasks and high 
purposes and who could surely be trusted to bear 
heavier burdens and achieve even more difficult 
work. 

After his elevation to the archiepiscopacy it was 
only a question of time and opportunity to show his 
adequacy to the new tasks that had been placed 
on him before the conferment of the cardinal’s hat 
placed him in the highest rank of Catholic ecclesi- 
astics of the world next to the Pope. There is no 
doubt at all that under his archiepiscopacy Phil- 
adelphia will continue to grow more Catholic not 
only in numbers but in spirit. The magnificent or- 
ganization of education and of charity makes the 
Church stand out as one of the most important 
of factors for the making of better citizens. They 
are sadly needed at the present time when crime 
is so much more common in our country than it is 
in any other civilized country in the world, and 
there seems no doubt that it will not be long before 
there will come general recognition on the part of 
all the citizens of the country of the work that the 
Catholic Church is doing in this regard and Phila- 
delphia is one of the leaders. 


GEORGE, CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 
SIxTH AMERICAN CARDINAL 


CARDINAL GEORGE WILLIAM MUNDELEIN was 
born July 2, 1872, on the lower East Side of New 
York City not far away from where his colleague 
in the American cardinalate, Cardinal Hayes, was 
born only a few years before, and where Governor 
Smith of New York State was born the following 
year. A circle with a diameter of less than half a 
mile would include the birth places of all three of 
these men who have impressed themselves so deeply 
on their generation and reached distinction in their 
chosen careers. Ele was the son of Francis and 
Mary (Goetz) Mundelein who were of German 
descent but they and their parents had resided in 
America for many years and were profoundly 
American in feeling. The best possible evidence 
for this is to be found in the fact that his grand- 
father was one of the first to enlist when Lincoln’s 
call for troops to defend the Union came in the very 
early days of the Civil War, and he was the first 
man killed in the Union ranks at the Battle of Fort 
Sumter. 

249 


250 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


The death of his grandfather leaving a large 
family of children with no income to provide for 
them made life rather trying for the Mundeleins 
in that and the next generation so that the family 
circumstances were rather straitened in the early 
years of the cardinal’s boyhood. As a result he had 
the advantage of that training which Thucydides in- 
sisted was the best possible for growing youth— 
having to go through hard things when one is young 
—which the great Greek historian declared lifts a 
man above the great mass of mankind if he has any- 
thing in him really worth while. 

The boy who was later to be the Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of Chicago learned from personal experience 
all the trials of narrow circumstances. ‘There prob- 
ably never was a time in his early life, once he grew 
out of actual infancy, when George Mundelein did 
not have certain work to do around the home that 
it was necessary for him to do. Straitened though 
life was for them by their rather difficult conditions 
of life, his folks were resolved to give him just as 
good an education as they could and no sacrifice 


was too much for them to make for that purpose. 


At the age of six he was sent not to the public free 
school but to St. Nicholas parish school not far from 
his home in New York, where at that time his 


parents would be expected to make a definite con- 


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tribution to the expenses of his education. He suc- 
ceeded very well.at the school and attracted the at- 
tention of his teachers the good Sisters of St. 
Dominic, who encouraged him to go on and secure 
an education for he had the ability that would make 
sacrifices for that purpose worth while. ‘There is 
still a good Sister at the old St. Nicholas parochial 
school who remembers him very well as a boy there 
and tells how faithful he was at his studies and how 
excellent he was in his conduct. 

He needed very little encouragement, however, to 
take advantage to the best possible extent of what- 
ever opportunities for education might be provided 
for him, for from his earliest years he was ambitious 
to acquire knowledge. On the other hand his folks 
were ever ready to continue to do anything and 
everything that might be necessary in order that he 
should have the chance to develop his mind. As a 
consequence of this, after graduating from the 
parochial school he was sent to old De La Salle In- 
stitute on Second Street in New York City where the 
Brothers of the Christian Schools founded in Paris 
by John Baptist de la Salle some 250 years ago were 
engaged in affording so many of the sons of the 
lower East Side families their introduction to higher 
education. ‘The centuries of tradition behind them 
in education were very precious for the work of 


252 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


bringing out all that was in the boys. Many after 
personal experience in their schools were quite ready 
to declare in later life that they felt that there are 
no teachers like these Christian Brothers for real 
development of mind and the awakening of intel- 
lectual interests. They succeeded admirably in 
arousing their scholars’ own ambition to learn and 
they were willing to sacrifice any time and attention 
that will help on that purpose. Often their own 
free days and hours are given over by the good 
Brothers to their pupils and they become their per- 
sonal friends in such ways as prove wonderful in- 
centives to study and the acquisition of knowledge. 
Many a young man of that time in New York owed 
his best possible preparation for life to the solid 
study following a very definite curriculum, every 
item of which was required, without any elective 
features, under the methods of the Brothers of the 
Christian Schools. 

Just as the future cardinal was beginning his high- 
school work in old De La Salle Institute, owing to 
the military strain in the family and the fact that his 


grandfather had been killed in the service of the 


United States, he was urged by a number of his 
friends to enter West Point where a cadetship was 
open to him. But already he had felt the call to 
the priesthood and so he prepared to enter the 





CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 253 


service of the Church confident that in this way he 
would be fulfilling his patriotic as well as religious 
duties. 

The memory of himself that George Mundelein 
left behind at De La Salle Institute as we gather 
it from some of those who knew him in the distant 
school days, was that of a very quiet, studious youth, 
most unobtrusive in his ways, faithful in every 
duty, never getting into trouble, and making himself 
liked by everyone by his simplicity and kindness. 
Many of the boys lingered after school for a time 
for games among themselves and sometimes for 
talks with the teachers, but young Mundelein almost 
never did, because he had too many things at home 
to occupy him and many chores to be done, so as to 
do his share in family life, since they were doing so 
much for him. 

At De La Salle he first came in contact with the 
future Archbishop of New York, Patrick J. Hayes, 
who was later to receive on the same day with him, 
at the hands of the Pope, the cardinalitial dignity. 
After he had completed his high-school work he 
entered Manhattan College where Cardinal Hayes 
also received his college education under the tute- 
lage of the Christian Brothers. Here they came to 
know each other very well and when their fellow 
students of that time marched in the procession that 


254 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


greeted them as they sailed for Rome to be made 
cardinals they reminded them of that earlier day 
when they had just been plain George and Pat to 
each other and to so many others. 

After fruitful years at Manhattan College where 
he received his degree of A.B. at twenty the future 
Cardinal of Chicago went out to pursue his philo- 
sophical studies at St. Vincent’s College, Beatty, Pa. 
Here the Benedictines some fifty years before had 
laid the foundations of a great abbey connected with 
which was a college and theological seminary. The 
monastic seclusion of St. Vincent’s situated as it was 
far from bustling city life and in surroundings re- 
sembling those which had characterized the first 
foundations of the Benedictines, when their great 
founder began that withdrawal from “‘the madding 
crowd” which meant so much for the cultivation of 
letters in an unfavorable time, made it a place where 
true education in the sense of the chance to think out 
thoughts as they come, might be secured. St. Bene- 
dict almost unconsciously to himself had thus laid 
the foundation of the Monks of the West. St. Vin- 
cent’s modern counterpart of Monte Cassino proved 
to be a home of culture and the intellectual life in 
that more distant west beyond the ocean undreamt 
of in St. Benedict’s day. The impress of those Bene- 
dictine years is probably still noticeable in the disci- 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 255 


pline of Cardinal Mundelein’s life and the serious- 
ness of his outlook on great intellectual problems. 

At the age of twenty the young neophyte prepar- 
ing for the priesthood, after the preliminary courses 
in life as it is lived on the lower East Side of New 
York and under the fine traditions of the Christian 
Brothers and the Benedictines, set out for Rome 
where for three years more he pursued his course 
at the College of Propaganda. 

On June 8, 1895, George Mundelein was ordained 
to the priesthood not by one of the distinguished 
Roman cardinals as is usually the case with those 
who study in Rome and are ordained there, but by 
his own Bishop McDonnell, not in one of the great 
basilicas but in the chapel of the Sisters of the Holy 
Cross. He celebrated his first mass the following 
day in the crypt of St. Peter’s. The intimate rela- 
tions between his bishop and himself which had be- 
gun with his adoption as a seminarian and his trans- 
fer to Rome for his major studies in theology and 
which culminated in his ordination, were continued 
after his return to the United States by his appoint- 
ment as assistant secretary to the bishop. For a few 
months as a young priest he had pastoral charge of 
the Lithuanian Church in the Eastern District of 
Brooklyn, although he remained attached to the 
household of the bishop. The only parochial duties 


256 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


that Cardinal Mundelein ever performed were those 
which came to him as rector of the cathedral chapel, 
Queen of All Saints, Brooklyn, in connection with 
his position in the bishop’s household. It was to 
his initiative however that was due the building of 
this chapel as it is called, though it is really a large 
church. He also built the parish school in connec- 
tion with the cathedral parish and these two build- 
ings have been proclaimed striking examples of how 
beautiful Gothic architecture can be applied to mod- 
ern ecclesiastical structures. Later he built the 
Church of Our Lady of the Isle at Long Beach, an- 
other beautiful building. 

After a brief two years, in December, 1897, he 
was appointed chancellor of the diocese of Brook- 
lyn an office which he held for some twelve years 
until he was made the auxiliary bishop of the Brook- 
lyn diocese. Cardinal Mundelein’s work was worthy 
of this recognition and five years after he became 
chancellor further recognition came in his appoint- 
ment as a Censor of the Liturgical Academy, No- 
vember, 1903. ‘Three years later (1906) he was 
made a domestic prelate to the Pope with the title 
of Monsignor, one of the youngest on whom the 
honor has been conferred, in recent years at least. 
The following year for a brilliant defense of Pope 
Pius X’s condemnation of modernism he was made 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 257 


a member of the Ancient Academy of Arcadia, one 
of the learned academies of Rome. This honor had 
never come to America before. 

Manifestly Rome was keeping its eye on the 
young chancellor of the Brooklyn diocese for the 
very next year while representing the diocese of 
Brooklyn at the Pope’s jubilee he was granted the 
degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology by the Con- 
gregation of the Propaganda. As a student of the 
Urban College of the Propaganda, he was looked 
upon as one of her sons whose careers would always 
have the watchful eye of alma mater on them. 

In 1909 he was selected as Auxiliary Bishop of 
Brooklyn and on September 21st of that year he 
was consecrated as titular bishop of Laryma, one 
of the episcopal sees of ancient Christianity which 
had lost its episcopal dignity because of the decrease 
in population. Earlier the same year the bishops 
of the province had selected him as their candidate 
for the vacant bishopric of Louisville, Kentucky. A 
destiny in the hierarchy of the United States was 
evidently preparing for him. As Auxiliary Bishop 
of Brooklyn he was appointed director of the Cathe- 
dral College of the Immaculate Conception of the 
diocese. ‘This was the preparatory or “‘little semi- 
nary” as it is called in which boys who aspire to the 
priesthood are given the special secular education 


258 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


in connection with religious studies and exercises 
that will fit them for their further curriculum in phi- 
losophy and theology in the theological seminary and 
prepare them for the fulfillment of the duties re- 
quired of them in their vocation as priests. Un- 
doubtedly it was his successful organization of this 
college and his wise regulation of it as its first rector 
which led to the recognition of his administrative 
ability and suggested his suitability for the vacant 
position of Archbishop of Chicago. This demanded 
a man of tried prudence and capacity for organiza- 
tion and such Bishop Mundelein had proved himself 
to be. He was the youngest archbishop in the 
country though Chicago was the second largest and 
most populous archdiocese. He had begun his ad- 
vancement in the hierarchy by being the youngest 
of domestic prelates to the Pope so that unprec- 
edented distinctions for his years were no longer 
a surprise. 

Those in Chicago who were acquainted with the 
newly appointed archbishop at once proclaimed their 
confidence that his appointment would mean very 
much for the development and reorganization of the 
great archdiocese of the Middle West. Rev. John 
M. Bowen who had been a classmate in Rome of the 
newly appointed archbishop when questioned by 
a reporter of one of the Chicago papers said, “I 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 259 


remember Bishop Mundelein as an extremely schol- 
arly young man. Even in those days he was known 
as one of the most popular students among:us. He 
knew every one. As a young man he was active 
—unusually so, a characteristic which I understand 
still marks him. Above all his other attributes the 
one characteristic which stands out most clearly in 
my memory is his passion for study and his remark- 
able knowledge along lines ecclesiastical.” 

Right Reverend Monsignor Francis C. Kelley, the 
director of the Catholic Church Extension Society 
of the United States, whose headquarters are in 
Chicago and whose own executive ability had made 
that society a wonderful force for the spread of 
Catholicity in the United States, declared ‘He is 
going to win his way into our hearts—lI can say that 
with perfect confidence. I know him and he has 
that faculty—he gives his whole heart and soul to 
his work.” 

The welcome accorded him as archbishop by both 
the clergy and the laity of Chicago was such as to 
provide ample assurance of the loyalty and fidelity 
of his flock. It became perfectly clear that a new 
era for the development of the great archdiocese 
whose diocesan city was the metropolis of the 
Middle West, was about to open. As Father 
Bowen had said of him as a student, it was not long 


260 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


before people began to like him very much and his 
activity proved an incentive to others that very soon 
made the diocese bustling with church interests of 
all kinds. His popularity grew from the very be- 
ginning and it was not long before he came to be 
looked up to as a father and a friend by all those 
who were brought in any way intimately in touch 
with him. 

His promotion to the See of Chicago came in 
December, 1915, so that now he has been more 
than a decade of years at the head of that great 
archdiocese. ‘The record of his achievement in this 
position of responsibility and hard work necessi- 
tating the fulfillment of so many administrative 
details and the solution of so many important prob- 
lems, makes it very clear that the ecclesiastical au- 
thorities made no mistake in choosing him for this 
exalted dignity with all the burdens that it involves. 
Already though still a comparatively young man he 
has accomplished so much that there is no doubt 
left in the minds of any who know him that if 
spared he will leave in the course of time a wonder- 
fully organized archdiocese in which every feature 
of Catholic life will be developed to the point where 
it can most deeply influence for good all the people, 
Catholic and Protestant, within the limits of the © 
archdiocese. His sterling qualities of mind and 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 261 


heart and soul have stilled certain dissentient dioc- 
esan elements present in former times and have 
brought a union and harmony of effort among the 
clergy that is producing strikingly good effects 
upon the people. 

At the time of his translation from Brooklyn to 
Chicago, he was hailed as the youngest archbishop 
in America and probably in the world. His years, 
however, proved only an excuse for the exertion of 
more energy in the affairs of the great archdiocese 
of Chicago and not at all for hesitancy of action. 
His activities proved so far from anything like im- 
prudent that it was not long before the youthful 
archbishop had attracted the attention of prominent 
citizens of Chicago and had secured their entire con- 
fidence. As a result he has taken a place in the re- 
ligious, economic, patriotic, educational and civic 
life of Chicago that has redounded to the glory of 
the Church and given her the place that she deserves 
in the city’s existence since so many of the citizens of 
Chicago belong to the Church’s fold. After all, in 
Chicago Archbishop Mundelein is the spiritual head 
of nearly 1,500,000 people comprising some thirty 
nationalities. He is the principal instrument 
through which they find a voice in the social life of 
the great metropolis of the West. No wonder then 
that as a worthy leader, prominent men in every line 


262 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


of thought have learned to look to his pronounce- 
ments and have sought to find out his opinion on all 
matters of importance even those which are quite 
outside the ordinary domain of his interest as a 
churchman. 

It was thought in Chicago that very probably one 
of the first tasks which their young energetic arch- 
bishop would assume would be that of building a 
great new cathedral worthy of the metropolis of 
the West. ‘This was one of the earliest suggestions 
that came to him and for a time it was entertained 
as representing very probably the first great step in 
the new policy of the archdiocesan administration. 
It gave way in the archbishop’s mind before long to 
his desire to relieve just as far as possible the suf- 
ferings and disadvantages of poverty among his peo- 
ple. His own broad experience of life made him 
realize very poignantly how much of need there was — 
for thorough-going organization for improving the 
condition of the poor and helping them to help them- 
selves, as well as preventnig the immediate suffer- 
ings due to the want of absolute necessities of life. 

As the archbishop himself said, “I would rather 
uplift the poor and despairing to a better and hap- 
pier life than rear the greatest cathedral in the 
world.” He called together a group of the wealth- 
lest and most influential Catholics of the archdiocese 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 263 


not for the purpose of organizing for the building of 
a cathedral but for the foundation of the Associated 
Catholic Charities of the archdiocese of Chicago. 
This organization collects and distributes annually 
nearly a million of dollars in charity and it has done 
much to solve the most urgent problems of poverty 
in the archdiocese. 

Certain features of the organization of charity 
show how thoughtfully the program has been devel- 
oped. The Misericordia Maternity Hospital for 
charity cases erected at a cost of nearly $200,000 
and maintained by funds granted annually from the 
Associated Catholic Charities is capable of caring 
for one hundred mothers and their babies. One of 
the phases of maternity hospital work in the modern 
time that sometimes is disturbing is the fact that 
the life of the child is not always held of just as 
high value as that of the mother. During our 
generation a great many lives of infants have been 
deliberately sacrificed because the sacrifice saved 
some pain and discomfort to the mothers, or because 
it was thought to lessen the risk of life to which 
mothers might be subjected. It is easy to under- 
stand then, why, when this maternity hospital was 
erected His Grace gave as the reason for it “‘for the 
saving of the souls of the babies.”’ Special precau- 
tions are taken to secure in every possible instance 


264 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the baptism of the child and to maintain its right to 
life as quite equal to that of its mother. 

Another outcome of this same fatherly solicitude 
for those who need the help of others because of 
the conditions in which they find themselves placed 
was the reorganization of the system of employment 
of the young women detained at the House of Good 
Shepherd. This is an institution under the direction 
of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd founded some 
two hundred years ago in France for the care of 
wayward girls. Archbishop Mundelein brought 
about the organization of a system of employment 


of the “children,” as they are called by the Sisters, 


with pay and in connection with a savings fund. As 
a result of this the girls when discharged from de- 
tention are sure to have sufficient funds to maintain 
themselves if it should be necessary for them to be 
idle for a time before finding occupation at the par- 
ticular kind of employment in which they became 
proficient during their stay at the home. This plan 
has worked very wonderfully and has made the girls 
independent of circumstances to a degree that has 


enabled hundreds of them to continue to lead good 


lives without hardship, even though they meet with 
serious disappointments in the matter of finding 
appropriate employment. 

Archbishop Mundelein was particularly anxious 


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CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 265 


that the orphans of his great archdiocese should be 
properly cared for. His solicitude in this matter 
led to the development and extension of the facilities 
of the St. Mary’s Training and Industrial Schools at 
Desplaines, Illinois. Here orphan boys and girls 
are taught self-supporting trades. ‘They are trained 
for their work at these and in connection with a 
wage and saving system are taught thrift and at the 
same time made capable of taking care of themselves 
when they are ready to go out into the world. With 
this work plans have been developed for the erec- 
tion of a large orphan home near Lockport, Illinois, 
to cost in the neighborhood of one million dollars. 
This will accommodate the orphans of Will and 
Grundy Counties and special provision will be made 
for the training of young folks whose interests will 
mainly be those of the country and the farming dis- 
tricts in the hope that this may prove a factor in 
preventing the ever continued migration from 
country to city which is crowding the city and mak- 
ing life artificial and superficial. This is all the 
more important because the number of the producers 
of the necessaries of life is constantly on the decrease 
with the prospect of serious results in the one-sided 
development of life that seems almost inevitable, 
unless definite efforts are made to train the young 
for an agricultural career. 


266 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


After the organization of the charities of his 
archdiocese his next care was for education. ‘The 
education of the clergy was the most important foun- 
dation stone for that purpose. One of the earliest 
works Archbishop Mundelein set himself to was the 
organization of the “‘little seminary” or preparatory 
school for the ecclesiastical seminary in Chicago. 
His experience as the first rector and organizer of 
the Cathedral College of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion in Brooklyn had given him valuable training in 
this matter, and so it is not surprising that Quigley 
Preparatory Seminary, so called in honor of his dis- 
tinguished predecessor who planned for it, was an 
immediate success. Its success has been emphasized 
with the years. At the present time there are some 
eight hundred students in attendance at it. 

While so many of the religious sects in this 
country are complaining of the difficulty that they 
have in securing candidates for the ministry, the 
Catholic Church finds no such difficulty but secures 
without trouble almost larger numbers of aspirants 
for the priesthood than are needed. This has proved 
particularly true in Chicago under Cardinal Munde- 
lein’s fostering care though there had been some 
dearth of candidates before and Chicago had se- 
cured her priests from many parts of the world as 
well as from among her own people. The training 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 267 


afforded these young men at the preparatory semi- 
nary is well calculated to develop their vocation as 
ministers of the Gospel and their fidelity and loyalty 
as priests of the archdiocese of Chicago, as well as 
make them ready for their sacerdotal life work in 
such a way as will render them most valuable in the 
service of the Church for the benefit of their coun- 
try. 

After the “little seminary”? was thus well organ- 
ized the archbishop planned at once the foundation 
of a major seminary where the candidates to the 
priesthood for the Chicago archdiocese could be 
properly taught and trained for their life work. He 
recognized the advantage of life in the country both 
because of the health and the lack of distraction 
from studies that it insured. Accordingly the semi- 
nary was located on a large tract of land in the little 
town of Area some thirty miles north of Chicago. 
The district in which the seminary is located has 
since been called Mundelein in his honor. ‘The semi- 
nary itself is called St. Mary’s of the Lake because 
it is situated at the head of a lake which is entirely 
included in the seminary property. ‘This has af- 
forded a fine opportunity for landscape gardening 
and for pleasant shaded walks on rising ground that 
surrounds the lake. ‘These cross bridges over arms 
of the lake at several points. All this adds very 


268 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


much to the beauty of the grounds and makes the 
seminary property one of the most charming of its 
kind anywhere in the world. As a result of the at- 
tention devoted to it, it has become an extremely 
suitable place for young men during their impres- 
sionable years to spend time that can scarcely help 
but refine their taste and give them a proper sense 
of artistic settings for Church property. 

The architecture of this seminary has widely at- 
tracted the attention of Catholics in the United 
States who are interested in the Church’s relation- 
ship to the nation. By Archbishop Mundelein’s 
suggestion the lines of the chapel which occupies a 
central position among the seminary buildings were 
planned to follow the Colonial style of Church 
architecture which had been developed here in 
America in the Colonial days. As a boy he had 
passed some summers near Lyme in Connecticut and 
had been deeply impressed by the old-fashioned 
meeting-house of that little town. He instructed the 
architect to pattern after this and sent him to study 
it in its original location. ‘This is what has been 
reproduced very beautifully as the central unit of the 
seminary buildings. The symbolism of this style is 
meant to emphasize the intimate relation between 
Catholicism and Americanism. It has been sug- 
gested that this is putting a holy water font in a 





CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 269 


Protestant meeting-house and that they are incom- 
patible, but the effect produced has been very strik- 
ing. and grows on one the more that is seen of it. 
The seminary buildings are planned to accord with 
this and they constitute a very impressive group of 
structures. 

Almost inevitably the adoption of this style has 
attracted a great deal of attention and has proved a 
subject of ardent discussion. Many do not hesitate 
to say that the putting aside of older styles of eccle- 
siastical architecture in favor of this very modern 
mode of structural expression is of dubious value. 
They insist that the Colonial mode of construction 
does not lend itself to such expression of serious 
religious ideas as is worthy of so important an edi- 
fice. On the other hand there are many who feel 
that the symbolism of the union between American- 
ism and Catholicism so well emphasized by dedicat- 
ing what seems externally a Protestant chapel to the 
service of Catholic worship is well worth the effort 
that has been expended on it. After all the Church 
has always adopted and adapted whatever was found 
good in the countries and among the peoples to 
whom she came. She has not always imposed her 
way of looking at things, but has constantly dedi- 
cated national ideas to Church service. In this 
sense the chapel at Mundelein expresses the intimate 


270 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


thought of our time and the feelings and sentiments 
of the builders in the same way that the old archi- 
tecture expressed the thoughts and aspirations of 
the ages of faith. The severer lines of the Colonial 
architecture emphasize above all the austerity of 
justice which represents the core of Anglo-Saxon 
contribution to modern civilization and justice is one 
of the greatest of the attributes of God. 

The buildings out at St. Mary’s of the Lake 
represent the last word in construction so far as 
ventilation, sanitation and convenience are con- 


cerned. They are thoroughly fireproof and are so 


arranged that noise is not transmitted and the best 
possible surroundings for study are created. The 
grouping of the buildings alongside of the chapel on 
the higher ground above the end of the lake is ex- 
tremely effective and they are surrounded by grounds 
that are marvelously beautiful. Some fifty thousand 
plants are put out each spring and in their growth 
they produce a wonderful effect. [he landscape 
architect chosen with as much care as the construc- 
tion architect has been given full opportunity to 


bring out all the natural beauty of the scene and he 


has succeeded very wonderfully. The walks and 
roads and paths are all so placed as to add to the 
beauty rather than detract from it and are carried 
out so as to represent certain boundary lines for 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN zig 


various portions of the ground rather than utili- 
tarian necessities that had to be inserted into the 
landscape. The landing at the edge of the lake has 
been treated so finely as to add greatly to the charm 
of the scene and the whole result is indeed a thing 
of beauty that cannot help but be a joy forever.* 
Archbishop Mundelein was intent, however, not 
alone on education for the priesthood but also on 
Catholic religious training for all ages of the young 
people of his diocese who were to spend their lives 
doing the practical work of the world. Parochial 
school education was taken up by Archbishop Mun- 
delein and carried forward with characteristic thor- 
oughness and prevision. Some idea of the work 


*The Cardinal has very wisely chosen to make the scene of the 
great procession of the Blessed Sacrament for the Eucharistic 
Congress the grounds of St. Mary’s of the Lake. Here there are 
four miles of walks around the lake crossing bridges over arms of 
the lake at various points that will make a wonderful setting 
for the Eucharistic procession. It will be possible to see every 
portion of the procession from any part of it. Very probably 
never has so suitable a location been found for so huge a religious 
procession as this will prove to be. As an immense crowd, probably 
approaching a million of people if not more, will find their way 
to Chicago for the Eucharistic Congress, the beautiful grounds 
will make a rare sight for them and will add greatly to the impres- 
siveness of the scene. It is probable that those who visit the 
seminary grounds at that time will never forget them. The back- 
ground of lake and trees and sky and the striking group of semi- 
nary buildings*always in view will make the scene one of the most 
beautiful ever witnessed. ‘The Eucharistic Congress has never 
probably had a more striking background. 


272 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


that was accomplished will be obtained from the fact 
that in the 239 city parishes of Chicago itself ac- | 
cording to the latest directory 220 have parochial 
schools. Only a very definite understanding that 
opportunities for Catholic education must be pro- 
vided in every parish could have brought about a | 
result of this kind. His care, however, was not only 
for the provision of the schools themselves but also 
for affording such education in them as would leave 
as far as possible nothing to be desired. ‘The qual- 
ity of the education was his special solicitude. As 
a consequence he insisted on the closer grading of 
the parochial schools and the direction by the dioc- 
esan board of every detail of education with the 
standardization of courses of study and of text- 
books. He emphasized above all that special atten- 
tion must be given to necessary subjects and that the 
basis of all teaching be English and that thoroughly 
American love of country be the watchword in the 
training of young Catholic citizens. 

This system has been further perfected by the 
creation of a board of school visitors and of super- 
visors composed of priests especially educated and 
trained for the work. Since the Church is assum- 
ing the responsibility for the elementary education 
of the children of Catholics, it must organize so 
as to provide the best possible education for the 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 273 


children. ‘They must be in a position to secure all 
that they would be able to obtain in public schools 
so far as real education is concerned and then be- 
sides they must have the benefit of religious training. 

This was only the beginning, however, and after 
the grammar-school reorganization, indeed simul- 
taneously with it, came the reorganization of the 
Catholic high schools of the city. As the result of 
Archbishop Mundelein’s urgent insistence on the de- 
velopment of this phase of the Catholic school sys- 
tem, there has come into existence a series of district 
high schools for Catholics worthy of the Church and 
of the religious education that she is fostering. 
Every step in the systematization of these high 
schools has been made only after consultation with 
recognized authorities in pedagogy and the accord- 
ing of their fullest approval of the plans. Indeed 
the special characteristic of this development has 
been the care exercised to be sure that nothing 
should be attempted that had not been well weighed 
and considered by those of expert authority in edu- 
cation. 

A number of these schools are already in opera- 
tion. Immaculata High School on the North Side, 
Mercy High School on the South Side, the Josephi- 
num High School in northwest Chicago, Alverno 
High School on the Northwest Side, the Mallin- 


274 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


krodt in Wilmette and the Catholic High School in 
Waukegan are examples. Those more recently built 
like Mercy and Alverno High Schools are million- 
dollar plants capable of accommodating very con- 
veniently a thousand pupils each. They have both 
been opened in the last few years and are filled to 
capacity. hey furnish the best assurance that fur- 
ther development of this high-school system will 
prove a boon to the Catholic population of Chicago. 
The plan is to cover the entire city with these dis- 
trict Catholic high schools for girls. When the sys- 
tem is completed there will be twelve of them in all. 
High schools for boys are planned to correspond 
with these to be erected according to the needs 
within the next few years. There has been a great 
increase in the number of young people seeking 
higher education beyond the elementary studies in 
Chicago and the cardinal has encouraged this in 
every way and his heart is more deeply wrapped up 
in the provision of education for all, education of 
the heart as well as of the head, than almost any- 
thing else. 

The cardinal’s plans include, moreover, not only 
the reorganization of grammar and _ high-school 
education but also of collegiate and university edu- 
cation. All of the Catholic colleges and universities 
have been coérdinated in such a way as to secure the 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 275 


highest efficiency. The central unit of the great 
Catholic University of Chicago is the seminary at 
Mundelein, Ill. The seminary faculty is already 
organized with diocesan priests occupying the ad- 
ministrative positions and the Jesuits as professors. 
More than 250 students are pursuing courses in 
philosophy and theology, and though one of the 
youngest of the seminaries in the country it has 
already come to be looked upon as one of the best 
organized. Only those who are studying for the 
exercise of the ministry of the priesthood in Chicago 
are admitted to the seminary and this gives a soli- 
darity and a unity of heart to all that promises well 
for their future codperation in the work of the 
Church in Chicago. ‘The lack of a diocesan semi- 
nary has been rather seriously felt in the past; be- 

cause of the effect that might be expected from it 
the prospect is bright indeed for the training of 
clergymen who will work well together. 

Archbishop Mundelein was very much interested 
not only in higher education for young men but also 
for young women. Not long after his arrival in 
Chicago he invited the Dominican Sisters who had 
for a long generation been so successful in the higher 
education of women at Sinsinawa in Wisconsin to 
open a college in the neighborhood of Chicago. 
They had already proceeded to college work at the 


276 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


old site which was, however, not suited for modern 
developments in higher education. A large tract 
of land was procured at River Forest west of Chi- 
cago and plans were formed for the expenditure of 
over a million of dollars for the erection of suitable 
buildings. Ralph Adams Cram, the distinguished 
Boston architect, was chosen as the architect of the 
new structures and the result is a marvelously beau- 
tiful group of buildings bearing about them all the 
old monastic traditions and yet thoroughly up to 
date in their provision of the most modern facilities. 
Cloisters are charmingly medieval, but close along- 
side them is a very modern swimming pool and the 
same interesting contrast of what is beautiful in the © 
olden times mingled with what is thoroughly con-— 
venient in the present day is to be noted everywhere 
throughout the buildings. Rosary College, as it is 
called, now has some three hundred students in at- 
tendance and its affiliation with the Catholic Univer- 
sity of Chicago under the egis of the archbishop, © 
gives it the prospect of magnificent success in the 
near future. | 
At the same time there came a corresponding 
development among the Sisters of Mercy, the re- 
ligious congregation that had for so many years — 
been one of the great founts of good work in both — 
education and charity for the archdiocese of Chi- 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 277 


cago. Down at Forty-seventh and Cottage Grove 
Avenue St. Francis Xavier’s College was founded 
and developed by them and afforded an excellent 
opportunity for young women to secure a college 
education without having to leave their homes if 
they lived in Chicago. At the same time it provided 
excellent facilities for the sisters themselves to en- 
able their younger sisters to secure the higher edu- 
cation under religious auspices. Under such circum- 
stances religious vocations are fostered and young 
women come eagerly to take up the life-work of de- 
voting themselves to Christian education and char- 
ity. The work of the Sisters of Mercy in this re- 
gard has made them very well known by all who 
are interested in the elevation of human minds and 
hearts and souls to what is best in them. At the 
Mercy Hospital in Chicago, Dr. John B. Murphy 
for many years did some of the best work in surgery 
that, according to his American and English col- 
leagues, was done anywhere in the world for this 
last three hundred years. There can be no doubt 
then of the ability of the Sisters of Mercy to organ- 
ize modern institutions up to the needs of the hour 
and this Cardinal Mundelein recognizes and has 
encouraged in every way. 

On March 2, 1925, cablegrams were sent from 
Rome to the Archbishops of Chicago and New 


278 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


York, summoning them to Rome, there to be clothed 
with the dignity of cardinals. Archbishop Munde- 
lein was at the moment visiting his sisters on Long 


Island and was telegraphed to from Chicago that — 


there was an important message for him from Rome. 
He at once made his way back to his diocesan city, 


where by this time some rumor of the promotion had © 


leaked out probably from Rome and confirmation — 


of the important news story was asked by the news- — 


paper reporters at the archiepiscopal residence. — 


There they were told that there was nothing to give 
out. 

Archbishop Mundelein felt that the first authori- 
tative statement of the honor about to be conferred 
on him by the Pope should go not to the public 


press but to his own people through the channel of © 
the pastors of the diocese to whom his pastoral — 


announcements were always addressed. This was 
very typical of the man and his feelings for his 
flock. He is least of all a publicity seeker. He felt 
deeply, however, that his people of the archdiocese 
were his children and that he should share directly 
with them at the earliest possible moment the joy 
there was in the direct recognition by the Father of 
Christendom of their archbishop. He has declared 
again and again that it was not as a matter of per- 
sonal recognition that the cardinalate was offered 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 279 


to him as that his great archdiocese and the million 
and a half of Catholics in his flock were honored by 
the Pope. This was the chief burden of the letter 
which he addressed to the pastors of the diocese 
to be read to their congregations on Sunday morn- 
ing, after Archbishop Mundelein himself had al- 
ready departed on his journey to Rome. The letter 
ran: 
March 7, 1924. 

‘REVEREND DEAR FATHER: 

It is with feelings of singular joy and gratitude 
that I announce to the clergy of this diocese the fact 
that I have been called to Rome by Our Holy Fa- 
ther to be raised to the Cardinalitial dignity in the 
coming Consistory on the 24th of this month. I re- 
gret that it was not possible for me to gather the 
priests together before my departure to rejoice with 
them and to express in person to them my apprecia- 
tion of the honor that has come to me through them 
and their people; but the time allowed me was too 
brief and moreover the message was held confiden- 
tial. 

I have welcomed this signal mark of the Sover- 
eign Pontifi’s favor, because it comes not because 
of any personal merit of mine but as a recognition 
of the devoted loyalty of the clergy and generous 
cooperation of the people of Chicago in every un- 


280 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


dertaking for the glory of God and in the cause of 
Christian charity and education. For that reason I 
am grateful and of that I shall be mindful at the 
moment of the Consistory when Pope Pius XI 
raises to the Cardinalitial dignity in my humble per- 
son the first representative of the Catholicity of the 
United States west of the Allegheny Mountains. 

I trust that the priests of Chicago and their peo- 
ple may keep me in their prayers during these days, 
that I may prove worthy of the honor conferred and 
mindful of its responsibilities and ever a help and 
consolation to the successor of St. Peter. 

Sincerely yours in Christ, 

GEORGE W. MUNDELEIN, 
Archbishop of Chicago.” 


The bestowal of the cardinalate on two Ameri- 
cans at the same time, archbishops of the two larg- 
est Sees in America, was to open a new chapter in 
the history of the relations of the papacy to the 
American people. Cardinals are spoken of as 
Princes of the Church and it is an index of the in- 
heritance of the spirit of the Lord and Master Who 
declared that the ultimate sign of His Church was 
that ‘‘the Gospel is preached to the poor,’’ whom we 
“have always with us,” that the two latest acces- 
sions to the College of Cardinals should both have 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 281 


come as the result of the papal desire to afford due 
recognition to America for all that her people had 
done for the poor of Europe in their time of need. 
The Pope wanted to emphasize the fact that the 
reason for the appointment of two American car- 
dinals at the same time was that the American peo- 
ple had demonstrated by their readiness to help 
the distressed of all nations in the trying disturbed 
period after the war, a spirit of beneficence which 
deserved the highest recognition that the Church 
could give. ‘he keynote of the proceedings was 
struck in this and it resounded all through the vari- 
ous parts of the ceremony by which the two Ameri- 
can archbishops were inducted into the cardinalate. 

Some idea of the deep feeling of affection and 
grateful reverence for the charity of the people of 
the United States that touched the heart of Pope 
Pius XI for all the beneficence which they had exer- 
cised during the war and after it for the distressed 
people of Europe, can be gathered from the address 
which he made on the occasion of the official crea- 
tion of the two American cardinals. This address 
(called an allocution) was delivered at the Consis- 
tory of all the cardinals held in the Vatican March 
24, 1924, when the Pope proclaimed the new cardi- 
nals. He said, “In the immense family which God 
has confided to us, there are brothers more favored 


282 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


by Divine Providence, who through the Father of 
All come to the assistance of their less fortunate 
brothers in their trials and disasters. Our heart is 
touched, and at the same time exalted toward God, 
thinking of and beholding their magnificent acts of 
filial piety and fraternal charity. We find pleasure 
in expressing to them from this exalted place, in this 
distinguished assembly, a fervent declaration of our 
gratitude, that of a father who feels himself much 
indebted on behalf of his suffering children. 

‘““As soon as we had lifted our voice to ask for 
help for the starving children of Russia, the episco- 
pacy, clergy and people of the United States an- 
swered with promptness, enthusiasm and generosity 
which placed them, and ever since has maintained 
them, in the front rank of this new crusade of char- — 
ity. We feel, however, that something would be 
wanting in this expression of gratitude if special 
mention were not made of the position and part 
which the United States of America took and main- 
tained in this concourse of charity. This benef- 
cence, shown everywhere and by all, continued for 
a long time; we can say that it even still continues, 
though gradually reduced in proportion as the days 
advanced in which the need diminished. 

“Later we intimated that fresh miseries and 
necessities had arisen in various parts of the world. 





CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 283 


It was only an intimation, as, indeed, discretion 
counseled, but it was sufficient to enkindle again 
everywhere fresh ardor to bestow money and mate- 
rial according to the varying possibilities. The 
slight intimation was sufficient to move the hier- 
archy, clergy and people, not only to maintain their 
primacy, but to push forward and upward, so they 
are seen to excel even the grand and wonderful 
deeds of charity they had previously performed. 

“Tt being an impossibility to express in words all 
that our heart feels at this historical and epic wave 
of charity, we have decided to express ourselves 
with a gesture which, touching as it does the very 
summit of the sacred hierarchy, shall be visible to 
all, and in its mute eloquence shall convey our 
thought, first of all to that great and most noble 
people and country, which in such a glorious task has 
been able to conquer such an enviable primacy.” 

And then came this happy culmination: 

“We have thought of raising to the honor of the 
sacred purple and of your Sacred College two prel- 
ates who, for their personal qualities, for their 
zeal, for the importance of their Sees and for the 
merits of their pastoral ministry are honored in the 
ecclesiastical hierarchy in the United States. If this 
action is extraordinary, the reasons which inspire it 
are without parallel, and no less extraordinary.” 


284 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


The expressions used by the Pope with regard to 
America had been so full of love and admiration for 
this country that the Consistory in which he used 
them has been spoken of as ‘“‘the American Consis- 
tory.’ Two days later when the cardinals were 
present in the Vatican on March 26th, for the im- 
position of the red birettas Cardinal Mundelein as 
the senior of the two cardinals in the hierarchy 
made the response for both and thanked the Pope 
particularly in the name of all Americans for the 
kindly words of appreciation which he had spoken. 
That address, brief though it is, is of great histori- 
cal import, because it relates to that characteristic 
American trait of helpfulness for all suffering people 
which was manifested so supremely by the Ameri- 
cans in dealing with needy nations since the war. 
Cardinal Mundelein said, ‘“‘From the distant shores 
first discovered by the great Genoese we have come 
at your call to receive from your venerable hands 
the most exalted dignity the Holy Church can give 
her sons. Fully aware of our own littleness, and not 
without fear and trepidation, we have come to the 
feet of your Holiness, but we are heartened by the 
same goodness that is reached out to us, that kind- 
ness which in these troublesome times of public 
calamities resulting from the World War has made 
his Holiness a Good Samaritan to suffering human- 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 285 


ity, a providential Pontiff of charity, modeled after 
the Divine Master, who went about doing good.” 

Pope Piux XI took occasion in responding to the 
address of Cardinal Mundelein to express his su- 
preme admiration for America and at the same time 
to emphasize his appreciation of all that America 
had done, was doing and surely would continue to 
do for the benefit of the rest of the civilized world. 
It was this portion of the ceremonies which brought 
out the expression of the Pope’s feelings as the 
Father of Christendom that deeply impressed all 
those who were present. ‘The feelings of one of the 
witnesses, himself probably the greatest of living 
historians, certainly the historical writer whose 
knowledge of the history of Rome made him most 
appropriately responsive, we shall quote in his own 
words after giving the brief address of the Pope 
which called them forth. 

“Our most happy and affectionate welcome to you, 
most beloved sons, who come from that great land, 
America. ‘Twice welcome, because as citizens and 
shepherds of that great country you came to this our 
Rome, which is also yours; because you are our sons, 
priests of the Holy Roman Church. ‘This great love 
of your youth, this great light that preceded and 
has presided over your ecclesiastical development 
renders more splendid in force and splendor of 


286 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


radiation these words, ‘Priests of the Holy Roman 
Church.’ 

‘“Welcome to you, who come to let us hear beau- 
tiful things; high, consoling things, such as you have 
just spoken! Truly, we have heard of the great 
faith of your people, of the magnificent development 
of their Christian life, of their flaming devotion 
to the Holy Faith and the Holy See, to the Vicar of 
Jesus Christ and to the Eucharistic Jesus himself. 

‘All this fills us with purest joy and gives us the 
golden key to the magnificent mystery of the mira- 
cles of charity which your country has shown us. 
All this convinces us that we have been well inspired 
in seeking and finding a means to demonstrate to 
your great people all our gratitude, all our paternal 
pleasure in honoring that people in your persons 
with the sacred Roman purple. 

‘You are not only representatives of that people, 
luminous representatives, but also specifically the 
representatives of that episcopate and clergy who 
in preparing that miracle of charity, as in the de- 
velopment of a magnificent Christian life, allowed it 
to be said of them: ‘As are the priests, so are the 
people.’ ”’ 

And then the Pope proceeded with solemn words 
that are both history and prophecy: 

“The drama of sorrow and charity is unending; 





; 
; 
; 
4 
“J 
4 
; 
. 
;: 
4 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 287 


it lasts as long as the world. Just so unending is 
the drama of divine pity. This great drama seldom 
has such a large and potent life as in your country. 
Life in the United States a century ago could be 
summed up in the small space of a few numbers. 
What has it not become in so short a time? Speak- 
ing only of what we have seen, America’s interven- 
tion decided the fate of Europe and the world. To- 
day its charity saves from hunger and death millions 
of individuals. What will it be in fifty years, in 
another century? If life continues to throb as now, 
what will the country be able to give, on which the 
Divine hand has bestowed such treasures, where 
men’s hearts contain measures of intelligence and 
force, immensely more precious ?” 

It is very interesting, as we have said, to note 
how these ceremonies in Rome struck a great mod- 
ern mind whose familiarity with the history of the 
past affords him a background on which the events of 
to-day can be seen in a perspective that gives them 
something of their place for all time. 

Guglielmo Ferrero, who must probably be consid- 
ered as the leading living historian of Europe in 
our day, was present at tlfe Consistory in which the 
new cardinals were created. He confessed that he 
had probably never been so thrilled at any ceremony 
as at this and his description of what he saw is one 


288 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


of the classics of such literature. He was the repre- 
sentative of a number of American papers and his — 
account appeared in many parts of the country. 
After describing the approach of Archbishop Mun- 
delein who as senior in the episcopate was the first 
to advance to the foot of the throne of His Holi- 
ness who placed on his shoulders the mozetta and on 
his head the red biretta and then of the same cere- 
mony for Archbishop Hayes, he records the fact that 
Cardinal Mundelein thanked His Holiness for 
the great honor of the purple which he had bestowed 
on him. And then he adds: 

“What the Archbishop said and what the Pope 
said you know from the official reports, but there is 
something which no reading of just the text of the 
two speeches can convey. It is the sense of fatherly, 
loving kindness which the Pope’s words infuse into 
our hearts; fatherly, loving kindness which seemed 
to spread itself over us as we listened and from us 
spread itself, like the widening ripples over the sur- 
face of a pond into which a stone has been cast, over 
Italy, over all Europe, over all America.” The 
great historian deeply touched proceeded: 

“With my eyes fixed on him and listening with 
rapt attention as he spoke, it came home to me that 
I was feeling nothing in the least resembling what 
I had felt in the presence of other authorities, those 


CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 289 


of the earth. They represent the force and the rude 
justice of man keeping as best they can by the power 
of menace and of the sword a certain order in the 
world. 

“But as the words issued from the lips of the 
Pope there grew on me the realization of what he 
had expressed in the secret’ Consistory with the 
words, ‘the universal fatherhood entrusted by God 
to his vicar on earth.’ 

“It was a sweet and deeply restful feeling of a 
rising in the heart of consolation and of hope. 
Every time that, since the war, I have spoken with 
one of those who have power on earth, I have come 
away more troubled than ever over the future in 
store for us. | 

‘When one speaks with these all seems egotism, 
bitterness, pride, obstinacy, lack of humanity—the 
spirit of the times. To-day, no. Listening to-day 
it seemed to me that at last Europe had recognized 
and praised in words of beauty and of deep paternal 
love, issuing in Rome from the lips of her oldest 
and most august authority, all that America had 
done to relieve the sufferings of the world.” ‘The 
Roman historian’s soul was lifted to prophecy: 

‘As I heard the solemn “Thank you’ of the Pope 
spoken to America in the name not only of the 


Church but of all generous souls in the Old World, I 


2909 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


felt that the powers of good, engaged though they 
be in fierce war with the power of evil, have not 
yet been and never will be overcome.” 

The ceremony ended, the United States had two 
additional cardinals, who returned to the United 
States clothed with their new dignity and their new 
powers to go on with their organization of the work 
of Christianity for the benefit of their countrymen. 
The welcome which they received on their return 
is the index of how much the people of the United 
States and especially of those who knew them the 
best appreciated the honor which had been con- 
ferred on them. Both cardinals came back with 
their hearts full of zeal and renewed purpose to de- 
vote themselves to the interests of their people, their 
country and of Christianity. 

The welcome accorded in Chicago partaking as 
might well be expected of the generous open-hearted- 
ness of the West and especially of the enthusiasm 
of the citizens of what they like to call their “breezy 
city,’ was a celebration never to be forgotten by 
those who witnessed it. It represented one of the 
greatest outbursts of enthusiastic good feeling that 
had ever been seen in this country. Only great 
patriotic celebrations on special occasions have ever 
equaled it and probably not even these have ever 
surpassed it. ‘The Chicago people of all classes 





CARDINAL MUNDELEIN 291 


and creeds took to their hearts their first cardinal 
and made him feel that he had indeed become one of 
them and that they were proud to greet him, feeling 
that the honors conferred on him were reflected on 
them. Some of the scenes of that celebration almost 
beggar description in the enthusiasm that was 
evoked and even the fluent pens of Chicago journal- 
ists found it difficult to describe in any adequate way 
the manifestations of feeling that had been evoked 
among the people. 

Cardinal Mundelein’s first thought after the cele- 
bration of welcome was over was of the organiza- 
tion of a great session of the International Eucha- 
ristic Congress to be held in Chicago in the latter 
part of June, 1926. ‘The preparations for that in- 
dicate clearly what a tremendously significant event 
it will be for stirring up faith in the Christ of the 
Last Supper and the Eucharistic memorial of Him- 
self that He left. The seminary grounds out at St. 
Mary’s of the Lake will form a magnificent setting 
for the procession and afford a charmingly beautiful 
background for certain Church ceremonies in con- 
nection with the Congress. ‘he cardinal has de- 
voted himself to the organization of this on a 
grand scale and with his well-known powers of or- 
ganization there is no doubt at all that Chicago 
will witness in this, the twenty-eighth Congress to 


292 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


be held, the greatest session of the Eucharistic Con- 
gress that has ever assembled and that American 
Catholics will give an unforgettable demonstration 
of their profound reverence for their Eucharistic 
Lord. 


PATRICK, CARDINAL HAYES 


SEVENTH AMERICAN CARDINAL 


CaRDINAL Hayes was born in New York City 
down in that lower part of Manhattan now known as 
the lower East Side where besides himself within a 
few blocks and within a few years of each other Car- 
dinal Mundelein and Governor Alfred E. Smith of 
New York were also born. His birthday was 
November 20, 1867. His parents, Daniel and 
Mary Gleeson, lived in City Hall Place close by 
St. Andrew’s Church. The future cardinal arch- 
bishop of New York was born not only in the 
shadow of the historic old church but also in the 
shadow of the City Hall. He was a typical New 
York boy and has lived the life of New York con- 
sciously for well above fifty years now and knows 
the history of his native city as few others know it. 
As might almost be expected” under the circum- 
stances, he is a great “booster” for New York, and 
thinks that many people for political and other rea- 
sons are prone to misrepresent the metropolis or to 
smirch its fair name. ‘There is nothing that he re- 

293 


294 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


sents more than any tendency to make our greatest 
American city appear in a more unfavorable light 
than it deserves. 

His mother died when he was but little more 
than an infant and for some years he remained in 
the care of his father who sent him to the parish 
school of the neighboring Church of the Trans- 
figuration because there was at that time no Catho- 
lic school in St. Andrew’s parish. While he was 
still but a mere boy he went to live with his mother’s 
sister, Mrs. James Egan, who with her husband 
resided in Madison Street. This brought the future 
archbishop into St. James’ parish so that from per- 
sonal experience he knows the early conditions and 
the history of Catholicity in down-town Manhattan 
very well. His uncle and aunt lavished all the care 
on him they could possibly have given him if he 
were their own son and as they were devoutly Catho- 
lic, intensely devoted to their religion, they exer- 
cised the greatest solicitude to have their nephew 
guarded from the many moral dangers which so 
constantly threaten the children of a great city in 
their free intercourse with other children on the 
streets. 

Their fostering care was rewarded to the full. 
Mrs. Egan lived to see her nephew and adopted son 
ordained a priest and later had the supreme happi- 





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CARDINAL HAYE 





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CARDINAL HAYES 295 


ness and privilege of seeing him consecrated aux- 
iliary bishop and of knowing that he was chosen 
archbishop of the diocese. She died two years too 
soon to have the supreme pleasure, as it would have 
been to her, of knowing that he was chosen as 
cardinal and of seeing him come back to New York 
clothed with the new dignity. His uncle however, 
Mr. James Egan, lived to enjoy that pleasure and 
was among the group of enthusiastic old friends 
who greeted his nephew affectionately at Quarantine 
on his return from Rome after having been ac- 
corded the distinction of Prince of the Church. The 
cardinal’s greeting in return as all who saw it noted 
well was that of a son. 

While living in Madison Street with the Egans, 
young Patrick Hayes was so successful at school and 
displayed such talent that his uncle and aunt were 
tempted to make the sacrifice—no small one for 
them—of sending him to the old De La Salle Insti- 
tute in Second Street conducted by the Christian 
Brothers. From here he was graduated at the 
completion of what would now be called high-school 
studies in 1886. Owing to his wish to go on with’ 
his education his uncle and aunt now sent him to! 
Manhattan College then situated at 133rd Street and 
Broadway to continue his studies. Already the de- 
sire was uppermost in his mind to become a priest 


296 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


and Manhattan College was the great nursery for 
New York priests at that time. Besides priests 
however a great many of the men who afterwards 
became prominent in the Catholic life of New York 
were educated there. 

The old buildings are still standing as this is writ- 
ten and they constitute a never ending source of 
wonder as to how the good Brothers of the Chris- 
tian Schools ever succeeded in accommodating in 
them in those last decades of the nineteenth cen- 
tury the large group of earnest students who have 
succeeded so admirably in every walk of life in 
“little old New York”’ in the years ever since. How 
under the crowded conditions that must have existed 
they succeeded in giving their students a genuine 
education that quite literally brought out their 
powers of mind must always remain a mystery. 
Men who were distinguished in medicine, at the 
bar, above all in the judiciary as well as in the 
Church, went through old Manhattan under the 
rather straitened circumstances of those old days 
and appear to have gotten more out of their educa- 
tional opportunities, such as they were, than modern 
schools seem able to give. Now when elaborate 
educational equipment seems to be so all important 
as to be almost indispensable it is interesting to note 
the results secured in the very limited facilities of 


CARDINAL HAYES 297 


an old-fashioned college. Mark Hopkins at one 
end of a log and a student at the other may make a 
university. It is what is brought out of the student, 
not what is poured in, that counts, and old Manhat- 
tan’s education measured well up to standard in that 
regard. 

The future cardinal graduated at Manhattan 
College in 1888, and began his theological studies at 
St. Joseph’s Seminary, Troy, N. Y., in September of 
that year. He succeeded admirably in his studies 
but was noted above all for his thoroughly religious 
spirit, his perfect accord with the discipline of the 
house and the friendships which his goodness of 
heart and cheerful happy ways made for him. He 
was so well thought of that he was ordained priest 
on September 8, 1892, some months ahead of his 
class and then was given the privilege of special 
theological studies at the Catholic University of 
America in Washington. He is one of the first 
significant fruits of that great university, an index 
of its power to train minds for higher things, that 
has meant so much for the Church in this country. 

At the end of his second year of studies at the 
Catholic University in June, 1894, the young priest 
was appointed assistant or curate at St. Gabriel’s 
Church on East 37th Street, New York, where his 
predecessor in the archiepiscopate, the late Cardinal 


298 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Farley, was then the rector, filling at the same time 
the duties of the office of vicar general of the dio- 
cese. Monsignor Farley had at this time been for 
nearly ten years the pastor of St. Gabriel’s and was 
looked up to as one of the most prominent priests 
of the archdiocese. The two future cardinals were 
thus brought intimately in touch with each other and 
the older man came to appreciate the younger one 
very highly. 

It was not surprising then that when Monsignor 
Farley was consecrated auxiliary bishop of New 


York he chose Father Hayes who had been his as- 


sistant for some five years as his secretary. Seven 


years later, in 1902, when Bishop Farley was nomi- 
nated to the archbishopric the young priest went 
with him as his secretary and it was very evident 


that further preferment in the Church would almost 


inevitably come to him. It was not long before 
Father Hayes was appointed the Chancellor of the 
archdiocese and filled this very responsible position 
with its many details of administration so admira- 
bly that when the question of the appointment of 


an auxiliary bishop came up his name very naturally 


was suggested for it by Archbishop Farley, and ac- 


cepted at Rome. In the meantime Father Hayes’. 


achievement in the organization of the Cathedral 
College had made it very clear that here was a man 


Oe ee eee 


CARDINAL HAYES 299 


whose administrative abilities could be absolutely de- 
pended on for important work requiring the exercise 
of tact, and a knowledge of men, as well as intel- 
lectual ability. 

In the meantime honors from Rome began to 
come to him. In 1903 the year of his appointment 
as Chancellor of the Archdiocese and of his organi- 
zation of Cathedral College he received his first of- 
ficial recognition from Rome in the form of the 
degree of Doctor of Divinity. Four years later in 
1907 Rev. Dr. Hayes was appointed domestic prel- 
ate by His Holiness Pope Pius X with the title of 
Monsignor. Seven years later Monsignor Hayes 
while in Rome with Cardinal Farley was appointed 
Auxiliary Bishop of New York on June 1, 1914, by 
Pope Pius X whose death as the result of the shock 
of the awful war that had broken out was to come 
only a few months later. Each of these positions 
imposed new and special duties and Dr. Hayes 
proved not only equal to them but demonstrated a 
power of control over details which showed very 
clearly his own strength of personality and his 
ability to understand men and see the deeper mean- 
ing of questions behind details that came to him. In 
the midst of all he won and held the friendship, cor- 
dial and enduring, of all those with whom he was 
brought in contact and especially in whose regard 


300 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


he had to fulfill the duties of the various offices 
which he held. 

As Chancellor of the Archdiocese of New York 
Monsignor Hayes had to keep in touch with not 
only every church but every clergyman in the dio- 
cese. There were many hundreds of churches and 
still more hundreds of clergymen but so thoroughly 
did he accomplish this work which came to him that 
it was often said that he knew all the priests in the 
diocese not only by name but in the intimate per- 
sonal way that enabled him to understand their 
problems sometimes almost better than they did 
themselves. He knew their histories, knew what 
they were doing for their parishes and what they 
were planning to do, was well aware how they were 
fulfilling their priestly duties and recognized the 
zeal they had for the Church. If these duties as 
chancellor were all he had to do perhaps the task 
would not have seemed so great, but he was besides 
the secretary of the archbishop and the president of 
Cathedral College and these duties added detail 
upon detail of responsibility that must have occupied 
every moment of the day and might very well be ex- 
pected at times to invade some of the night. 

Even all this however does not complete the tale 
of his duties. He was a contributor of important 
articles to the Catholic Encyclopedia as well as to 


CARDINAL HAYES 301 


the Catholic University Bulletin. He wrote for the 
North American Review an interpretation of the 
new marriage law, Ne temere (so called because of 
the initial Latin words in the papal decree promul- 
gating it) which was an admirable piece of work for 
its clearness, accuracy and brevity. Such an article 
was needed very much at that time because there 
had been rather serious misunderstandings with re- 
gard to the new Roman Catholic marriage law. It 
had been said, though of course quite without rea- 
son, that the Church absolutely refused to recognize 
the validity of marriages contracted without the 
Church’s blessing. This was not true except for 
members of the Church thoroughly aware of the 
Church’s legislation in the matter. This legislation 
was for Catholics and not for those outside of the 
Church. The Sacrament of Marriage has for its 
ministers the wedded couple themselves and not the 
clergyman who performs the ceremony. Monsignor 
Hayes brought out very well the distinctions in this 
matter and made it very clear just what the Church 
legislation aimed at accomplishing in order to make 
matrimony more sacred and solemn than the tend- 
ency of the modern world was prone to permit it 
to be. 

It was undoubtedly his work at the Cathedral 
College which first called particular attention ta 


302 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Father Hayes’s power as an executive and an ad- 
ministrator. The Cathedral College is a prepara- 
tory seminary which affords high-school and college 
training for youths who feel that they may have a 
vocation to the priesthood. The object of the “‘little 
seminary” as it is called throughout the Catholic 
world is to give to aspirants for the priesthood a 
broad foundation of education devoting special at- 
tention in the course of it to what concerns their fu- 
ture vocation to the Catholic ministry. The policy 
of the Church has always been to take boys in their 
impressionable younger years from twelve to four- 


teen and provide them with a solid fundamental edu- 


cation which at the same time includes a special 
training of heart and mind in religious matters. 

It is well understood that a certain percentage of 
the boys who in their early teens think they have a 
vocation to the priesthood will prove after a time 
not to be suited for the life or will develop ambi- 
tions along other lines. It is important then to give 
them such an education as will prove useful for a 
career in the world and the idea of thoroughness of 


education for any and every purpose as a solid 


foundation for future work in any line must be the 
policy of the preparatory seminary if it is to be 
successful. The organization of such an institution 
then requires rather nice adjustment of educational 





CARDINAL HAYES 303 


details and above all demands special regulation of 
the educational forces that make for training of 
character. Nowhere should the maxim of Presi- 
dent Hibben of Princeton be better exemplified as 
the keynote of education than in the little seminary. 
“Let us make men and they will find their work.”’ 
That I know was the idea that was uppermost in 
the mind of Rev. Dr. Hayes in the early days of 
the founding of Cathedral College. 

Cardinal Farley committed the organization of 
the new institution to Father Hayes with perfect 
confidence though this quiet young man had not 
deeply impressed himself upon many people. The 
result was most interesting. It goes almost without 
saying that the number of students in such an insti- 
tution in a great Catholic archdiocese like New 
York City would grow very rapidly. Actually in 
the course of half a dozen of years there were some 
five hundred students in attendance. Any one who 
thinks that candidates for the priesthood in the 
Roman Catholic Church are few in proportion to 
the needs or are decreasing invrecent years because 
of modernistic tendencies should take the oppor. 
tunity sometime to study the statistics of the various 
seminaries little and grand as they are called that 
have been founded throughout the country. Those 
of the Cathedral College are particularly interesting 


304 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


in this regard. It is easy to understand however 
that with such a rapid growth without definite tra- 
ditions to guide both masters and pupils, abuses may 
readily creep in. It is not easy to foresee needs 
and details of policy and it is hard to regulate the 
various phases of college activity and yet encourage 
their development while at the same time co- 
ordinating the elements of the curriculum. 

From very early in the organization of the col- 
lege I was among those asked to serve on the 
faculty. I have continued my connection with it as 
professor of physiological psychology for nearly 
twenty years. It was a never ending source of sur- 
prise to me to note how smoothly everything worked 
in the early days of the developmental period of 
Cathedral College. New machinery is likely to 
creak some and to knock occasionally and then there © 
is an injunction about not running it too fast until a 
considerable amount of mileage has been covered 
so that the various portions of the machinery groove 
themselves into co6rdination with all the others. 
The growth of the college students in number at the 
Cathedral College together with the high-school | 
students necessitated the educational machine going 
rather rapidly and yet everything ran along so 
smoothly as to be quite satisfactory. Indeed the 
college seemed almost to run of itself. I need 


CARDINAL HAYES 305 


scarcely say however that any one familiar with in- 
stitutions that bring together any considerable num- 
ber of human beings and especially youthful human 
beings from twelve to eighteen is not likely to think 
that they run of themselves. When they go smoothly 
and get over ground well, some place there is a 
master hand guiding them and directing them to 
good purposes. When they are successful, the guid- 
ing is probably not from without but there is a defi- 
nite and successful appeal to great motives within 
the human beings most concerned which serves to 
keep them on the straight path without straining. 

When the college curriculum was completed and 
the classes were filled up to the Senior year, the 
Board of Regents of New York State was asked to 
examine the school for the purpose of rating it as 
to the conferring of degrees and this examination 
proved to be scarcely more than a formality since 
the college had been so well organized that it was 
easy to appreciate its right to the Regents’ recogni- 
tion. 

It was perfectly clear after this that the young 
chancellor of the archdiocese so quiet and unassum- 
ing in his ways, so cheerful in his relations with all 
those with whom he was brought in contact, so ready 
to see the humor of things while intent on accom- 
plishing all that was best, would go far in the ad- 


306 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


ministrative life of the Church for the organization 
of the Cathedral College afforded rather striking 
evidence of his ability to do work in that friction- 
less way that is so important to assure success in 
Church movements and religious purposes. Ohne 
Hast, ohne Rast, is the motto of religious move- 
ment—'‘‘without haste and without waste move- 
ment.”’ 

With the war came the necessity for the organi- 
zation of chaplains for the Army and very soon it 
came to be realized that that army would amount to 
several millions of men and that though the Catho- 


lic percentage in the nation 1s only about 20 per cent, 


the number of Catholics among the soldiers and 
sailors of the Army and Navy was nearly 40 per 
cent. Here was an immense task of organization to 


be accomplished. ‘here were a great many volun- 


teers to do chaplain work both in the camps here and 
in the camps abroad, with ever so many younger 
and not a few older men clamoring for the oppor- 
tunity to work among the men at the front in spite 
of the danger to life and limb that might be in- 


volved. It was important to select those who would 


be most valuable for the purpose and then to see 
that they obtained such training as would enhance 
their value and make them of the greatest possible 
service to the Army. Here was a job that was big 





CARDINAL HAYES 307 


enough for man-sized shoulders indeed and it 
seemed as if it might be too large for any one man. 
When Rome was questioned with regard to it the 
Papal Secretary of State suggested that as New 
York was the principal port of debarkation for the 
troops and as Bishop Hayes was the auxiliary bishop 
of New York he was the logical man for the posi- 
tion and the ecclesiastical authorities felt that they 
could entrust this immense responsibility to him 
without any hesitation as to what the results would 
surely be in order and efficiency. 

Accordingly, on November 29, 1917, Bishop 
Hayes was appointed by the Holy See to be Bishop 
Ordinary of the Armed Forces of the United States. 
When the number of chaplains multiplied so as to be 
commensurate with the large numbers of the men 
enlisted, it very soon became clear that they could 
not remain under the jurisdiction of their respec- 
tive bishops or archbishops scattered throughout the 
country, but that there would have to be some cen- 
tral authority directly connected with the military 
department. Hence the appointment of Bishop 
Hayes to that position which almost needless to say 
carried with it an immense responsibility. In his 
episcopal capacity as bishop of the forces he super- 
vised the work of the Catholic chaplains in the Army 
and Navy and had to make episcopal visitations of 


308 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


a great many of the camps in this country during 
the war. War conditions had a tendency to relax 
the ordinary discipline of the priesthood and cir- 
cumstances tended to do away with many of the 
safeguards that hedged the lives of young priests 
particularly in their work in the ordinary service of 
the Church. All this added to the responsibility 
that was placed on the shoulders of Bishop Hayes 
and his response to that was of itself a fine demon- 
stration of his personal character and administrative 
ability. 

A great many chaplains were needed for the lit- 
erally millions of soldiers who were enlisted during 
the war, for though the United States participated 
in the war operations for only a little more than a 
year, over two million of men were under arms. 
As Military Bishop of the United States, through 
the ready codperation of the American hierarchy, 
Bishop Hayes secured some nine hundred priests to 
serve as chaplains, commissioned and non-commis- 
sioned, both here and in Europe. By a very unusual 
extension of jurisdiction necessitated by war condi- 


tions, his diocese was not only commensurate with 


the whole United States but also included every por- 
tion of the world where there were American Catho- 
lic chaplains or soldiers or sailors in the service of 
the United States government. This was a task 


—— so le 


CARDINAL HAYES 309 
‘indeed but it was fulfilled admirably and Bishop 


Hayes’ success in it undoubtedly constituted one of 
the important reasons why after the death of his 
Archbishop, Cardinal Farley, in September, 1918, 
he was selected to succeed him as Archbishop of 
New York. 

How he accomplished that task can be best told 
in the words of the oldest of navy chaplains who for 
twenty-five years has been occupied with naval duties 
and who if any one was able to estimate how much 
Cardinal Hayes as camp bishop accomplished for 
the fighting forces of the United States Army and 
Navy in the World War. Rev. Matthew C. Glee- 
son, U.S.N., in his address delivered on behalf of 
the Army and Navy on the occasion of the solemn 
reception of His Eminence, Patrick, Cardinal Hayes, 
at St.: Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, April 30, 
1924, said, “Under ordinary circumstances the 
tributes offered by your priests and people would 
have been adequate to the demands of the occasion, 
but in the case of Your Eminence, associations of 
national significance seemed to insist that you be 
welcomed not only as the Cardinal Archbishop of 
New York, but as the Chaplain Bishop of the Army 
and Navy. 

“For, aside from the dignity that is yours as Met- 
tropolitan, you have spiritual ties which bind you 


310 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


to the nation itself, and commission you to authority 
in every land and on every sea where the flag of 
our country keeps watch and ward. Not alone are 
you head of the greatest archdiocese in Christen- 
dom, next to St. Peter’s own, but you are the spirit- 
ual leader of the forces of national defense, and 
as such, have under your supervision every priest, 
and every layman of the faith, who is privileged to 
wear its uniform. When it came then to give place 
to those who had official claim upon this unique 
opportunity, it was deemed fitting that the clergy 
and the laity of the United Services should have 


the distinction of extending to you a special wel- 


come of their own. 
‘And in this message of greeting and of con- 
gratulation, Your Eminence, along with those now 


on active duty is associated every priest and every 


religious who had the honor of serving under you 
during the World War. You are our first Mili- 
tary Bishop. You came to us in the crisis of a 
great emergency, and to you as Ordinarius Castren- 
sis was committed the herculean task of providing 


at short notice the Catholic Chaplain quota, nec- 


essary to cope with the need of our armies. In the 
pursuit of this duty, it was yours to select from a 
legion of volunteers the priests best fitted in youth 
and in strength for active service; to provide them 





CARDINAL HAYES 311 


with everything essential to the ministry of their 
sacred office, and to build up the machinery of an 
Ordinariate, capable of meeting at every angle the 
call of spiritual ministration, both afloat and 
ashore. Single-handed, it might be said, and with- 
out a precedent to follow, you prosecuted this un- 
dertaking with apostolic zeal and fervent patriot- 
ism. You spared no personal sacrifice, recognized 
neither difficulty nor trouble, communicated your 
own enthusiasm to all with whom you came in con- 
tact, with the result that long before our armed 
forces were ready for action, you had your 
chaplains commissioned, equipped, and in the field. 
The success which rewarded your efforts is now a 
matter of historic record. It earned for Your 
Eminence the thanks of a grateful nation. It won 
for you the abiding gratitude of your Catholic fel- 
low citizens. It made your name a benediction at 
home and abroad; and those of us who were with 
you in the comradeship it forged are proud to feel 
that it was the one achievement which put the su- 
preme cachet upon your genius as an administrator, 
shaped your whole after career as a prelate, made 
you an outstanding figure in an illustrious hierarchy, 
and helped to render inevitable the splendid con- 
summation of attainment, which we glory in this 
morning.” 


312 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


Besides his work as Bishop of the United States 
Armed Forces, Bishop Hayes took an active part 
in every patriotic undertaking that was organized 
for the help of soldiers and sailors, or calculated 
in any way to win the War. He was one of the 
four bishops chosen to constitute the executive com- 
mittee of the Catholic War Council. This Council 
was composed of the members of the American 
hierarchy which by fortunate coincidence found 
itself in session in Baltimore at the time of the dec- 
laration of war and immediately offered every pos- 
sible service to the country through the hands of 


President Wilson who appreciated very deeply their © 


enthusiastic patriotism and expressed his sense of 
personal obligation for their hearty good wishes and 
good will. In order that the hierarchy might con- 


stantly be in a position to exercise its influence, the © 


executive committee of the Catholic War Council 
met frequently and to them was referred most of 
the questions that came up during the war as re- 
gards the fulfillment of the promise of the hierarchy 
and the affording of the most complete codperation 
to the government. 

Bishop Hayes under Cardinal Farley’s direction 
was constantly occupied with war work of one kind 
or another. He was the inspiration and the di- 
rector of the Knights of Columbus drive for war 





| 


CARDINAL HAYES B12 


funds which realized nearly five million dollars and 
which initiated the Knights of Columbus war activi- 
ties that were to prove so heartening to the soldiers 
both at the camps in this country and in the field 
operations abroad. Without “Casey” in France 
one of the picturesque activities of the war would 
have been lacking and many a young soldier would 
have missed the stimulus to his morale that came 
from contact with them. A little later during the 
war Bishop Hayes was one of the directors of the 
United War Work drive which secured for distri- 
bution to the various social agencies attached to 
the camps and to the troops in the field over $170,- 
000,000. In the course of these drives Bishop 
Hayes made many addresses and what he had to 
say, brief and to the point, coming from a man 
who himself was devoting all his efforts for the 
benefit of the soldiers and sailors proved very ef- 
fective. His words were a source of inspiration 
that brought a great many people to make further 
sacrifices for the winning of the war. 

On March 10, 1919, Pope Benedict XV, ap- 
pointed Bishop Hayes to succeed Cardinal Farley 
as archbishop of New York. On March 19, St. 
Joseph’s day, the new archbishop was installed in 
St. Patrick’s Cathedral by the Most Reverend John . 
Bonzano, apostolic delegate and personal represen- 


314 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


tative of the pope in such matters in this country. 
The occasion was notable and was attended by an 
immense crowd of people who filled the cathedral 
and all the surrounding streets. [here were ad- 
dresses on behalf of the clergy by Right Reverend 
Monsignor Mooney who had been for many years 
the Vicar General of the New York archdiocese 
and a dear personal friend of Bishop Hayes; on 
behalf of the army and navy chaplains by Mon- 
signor Waring who had occupied a position in re- 
lation to the chaplains under Bishop Hayes’ au- 
thority resembling that of the Vicar General of 
a diocese. Finally there was an address given on — 
behalf of the laity by Justice Victor J. Dowling of 
the appellate division of the Supreme Court of the 
State of New York. ‘The people of the archdiocese 
were pleased beyond measure that the appointment 
had come to one whose many years of service in 
the archdiocese made it clear beyond all doubt that 
the policy of his predecessors which had accom- 
plished so much for Catholicity in New York was 
to be continued. 

Just five years later on March 24, 1924, Pope 
Pius XI created Archbishop Hayes of New York 
and Archbishop Mundelein of Chicago, cardinals. 
Both had had excellent success in organizing the 
religious activities of their archdioceses. Cardinal 


CARDINAL HAYES 315 


Hayes’s reorganization of the charities of New 
York had demonstrated his administrative ability 
in large affairs and the call to the cardinalate was 
not unexpected except perhaps by the future cardinal 
himself. New York proceeded to exhibit its pride 
over the fact that a New York boy out of the heart 
of old New York had reached the dignity of cardi- 
nal. The receptions on his return from Rome on 
the part of all manner of people of his own flock 
and of those not of it must have touched his heart 
deeply and made him realize how thoroughly he was 
appreciated by his own folk. 

Cardinal Hayes’s feelings toward New York 
were very well demonstrated by the message which 
he sent from his steamer on the way back just as 
soon as he was able to get in touch by wireless with 
his native city. ‘That message was very character- 
istic. It was, ‘God bless little old New York.” 
As has been said the “‘little old New Yorkers” knew 
what he meant. He was undoubtedly homesick for 
the old town. He had had enough of the pomp 
and circumstance of old Rome and now he was 
hungry to get back to “little old New York.” He 
wanted to know just how the city would react to 
the fact that a boy born down on the lower East Side 
was come back to be its cardinal archbishop. New 
York had a warm place in his heart and he wanted 


316 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


to find how warm was the place that he occupied 
in the heart of New York. Almost needless to say 
he was destined to be completely satisfied in that 
matter just as soon as he landed but in the mean- 
time there were days to wait and though steamers 
might be fast they were not fast enough for one 
heart at least that was separated from its own and 
longed to be back among the old town folks. 

In the banquet given him after his arrival in this 
country by the Catholic Club at the Waldorf-As- 
toria before more than fifteen hundred laymen in- 
cluding a large number of distinguished non-Cath- 


olic citizens of New York, Cardinal Hayes said, 


“Let no one fear that the making of the Arch- 
bishop of New York a Cardinal has made him less 
an American.’’ And then he added in terms that 
might very well have come from that other great 
American cardinal, Archbishop Gibbons, “One thing 
comes to me at this hour—I feel that America will 
always be right. America is bound to grow and 
prosper, she is bound to broaden, she is bound to 
fulfill a mission that Divine Providence has set 
for her—she is bound to do it when men like you 
will come and pay tribute to a shepherd. For you 
are here to pay tribute to a cardinal shepherd. 
There have been cardinal statesmen, there have 
been cardinal scholars, there have been cardinal 





‘ 
a 
J 


ee ee 


CARDINAL HAYES 317 


scientists, but I am here to-night only as a cardinal 
shepherd.”’ 

Cardinal Hayes likes to talk of himself as the 
shepherd of his flock. He has said over and over 
again in public addresses that he does not like people 
to think of him so much as a cardinal or archbishop, 
as of a shepherd. The tenderness in his heart is 
well-known. He has a gentleness and a fatherly 
solicitude for those with whom he comes in contact 
that has made him deeply beloved by all those who 
know him well but that has given him a very warm 
place in the hearts of those who are brought in 
contact with him even but transitorily. He is a 
man whose heart is developed even more than his 
head, though he was looked upon as one of the 
most talented of students in his school days. That 
sum of kindly feeling for mankind which has been 
suggested as the definition of what is meant by the 
“heart” is surely developed in him to a notable 
degree. 

The result is that his influence is not confined 
or limited to those of the Catholic faith though 
as head of the New York archdiocese Cardinal 
Hayes is the spiritual leader of nearly 1,500,000 
devoted Catholics. In addition to these an increas- 
ing number of non-Catholics are constantly seeking 
him and above all looking to his decisions and pro- 


318 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


nouncements for direction in the difficult social 
problems that our generation presents. ‘The cardi- 
nal’s fearless stand on religious questions and his 
simple definite expression of faith when contrasted 
with the doubt and hesitancy as to essentials to be 
noted in public expressions of some of the leaders 
of non-Catholic creeds, has prompted a great many 
of those not directly of the cardinal’s flock to seek 
his advice. It has been said that he knows New 
York, root and branch, but he also knows New 
Yorkers very well and New Yorkers know him and 
trust him. There is no doubt at all that his occu- 
pation of the position of archbishop of New York 
will redound greatly to the benefit of the arch- 
diocese and of the Catholic Church in this coun- 
try but also that it will have a very definite effect 
for good on the life of the American people and — 
the social and religious conditions of our country. 

The appointment of these two cardinals, arch- 
bishops of Chicago and New York, was entirely 
due to the pope’s wish to make public recognition 
of the gratitude that he felt that Europe and the 
Church owed to the Americans for all that they 
had accomplished to save the suffering peoples of 
Europe from starvation just after the World War 
when things were in such bad condition. Cardinal 
Hayes said of the address of the pope on the oc- 


CARDINAL HAYES 319 


casion of the conferment of these honors upon Amer- 
icans that it was very evident that His Holiness 
had been deeply touched by all that he knew Amer- 
ica had accomplished and that his one desire was 
to make Americans feel that all their goodness had 
been deeply appreciated. Cardinal Hayes said, “I 
know that I am welcomed home, first of all, as an 
American citizen who has been honored by the most 
ancient and venerable spiritual throne in the world. 
Pope Pius XI in every utterance made it quite clear 
that his desire was to honor America, not for any 
political, scientific or economic achievement; not for 
any advantage there might accrue to the Catholic 
Church in America; not to gain favor with the 
American people, but because of American charity 
to suffering humanity. America’s Catholicity of 
charity dispensing to the ends of the earth, a largess 
of mercy, hope and courage with the necessaries 
of life has gained for our glorious republic a pres- 
tige and a position among nations which none can 
take from her—and a benediction from heaven 
which will serve our beloved land in these critical 
hours of the world’s history.”’ 

On his arrival in this country Cardinal Hayes 
had emphasized the fact that the papal consistory 
in which the two American cardinals had been cre- ° 
ated had been all American in its proceedings. He 


320 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


said, ‘One of the vivid impressions that I carried 
away from there was that the ceremony was so 
entirely American. The two Cardinals who were 
created were Americans. The Holy Father made 
repeated references to America, and this, together 
with the number of Americans in Rome, conveyed 
to all the general impression that it was an Ameri- 
can Consistory.” 

Of the many duties that his great archdiocese, 
which contains more practical Catholics than any 
other diocese in the world, imposes on him, the 
work that Archbishop Hayes has taken most to 
heart has been the establishment on a broad firm 
basis of the charities of the archdiocese. Deep 
down in his heart there is the profound conviction 


that the greatest of Christian virtues is charity and — 


that the fulfillment of the second of the two Com- 
mandments in which the Lord Himself summed up 
the whole law and the prophets, ‘“Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself,’ is the supreme index of 
Christian living. With this in mind just as soon 
as he became archbishop of New York, he pro- 
ceeded to work out a solution of the problems of. 
charity that are necessarily so many in his large 
archdiocese. ‘ver since his heart has been in the 
work of doing more and more for charity, relieving 
suffering, preventing penury and want, helping those 





CARDINAL HAYES 321 


who need help but above all helping people to help 
themselves and he has been a source of inspiration 
for all his archdiocese to devote themselves to the 
work of charity. He himself has done more than 
any one else and his constant interest has kept 
others at work until now what has been accom- 
plished has become a model for the other dioceses in 
the Catholic world, an outstanding example of the 
immense amount of good that can be accomplished 
by proper coordination of charitable work. 

The first step in this important matter was taken 
when his Eminence, Cardinal Farley, in the fall of 
1913, organized the United Catholic Works, a 
movement very necessary at that time for the need 
of reorganization of Catholic charities was very 
much felt. Under his guidance this new departure 
made an excellent beginning and seemed certain of 
producing the most beneficial results. The war 
years which followed until the end of 1918 disturbed 
conditions to such an extent that Cardinal Farley’s 
plan for the development of the United Catholic 
Works was not carried through to the full realiza- 
tion that he had hoped and confidently looked for. 
As the Auxiliary Bishop of New York Cardinal 
Hayes had been very much interested in this project 
and appreciated very thoroughly how much of bene- 
fit would surely accrue from it. He had given him- 


322 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


self whole-heartedly to the new development be- 
cause he felt that nothing could be of so much help 
not only for the poor themselves but for the proper 
understanding of Christianity by those outside of 
the Church. 

Immediately after his appointment as archbishop 
at the annual diocesan retreat in June, 1919, he an- 
nounced to the assembled priests of the archdiocese 
his purpose of charity reorganization. He outlined 
some of his plans but declared that he felt that the 
most important initial step was to learn about the 
needs of Catholic charities in the archdiocese by 
having a careful and thorough survey of the charity 
situation made. His Grace called a meeting of 
some four hundred people, representative of the re- 
ligious orders and laity, who were in charge of vari- 
ous Catholic works throughout the archdiocese. 
They were invited to codperate in presenting details 
of information. A separate report was submitted q 
for every institution, agency and parish studied in 
their relations to charity. Some of these reports 
went into several hundred pages. Public officials as 


well as representatives of private agencies of vari- — 


ous kinds were visited and consulted and their opin- : 
ions particularly with regard to Catholic charitable © 
works were obtained. The survey took over six — 
months to complete, but it brought out everything — 





CARDINAL HAYES 323 


of interest and importance in the matter of Catholic 
charities, so that a commencement might be made 
on a firm basis of as nearly complete knowledge as 
possible. This study brought to light the vast num- 
ber and great variety of Catholic charitable activi- 
ties in the diocese and showed there was scarcely an 
avenue of charity but that had been opened up by 
the Church in the diocese—orphanages, hospitals, 
boys’ and girls’ clubs, settlement houses, nurseries, 
working girls’ homes, convalescent homes, fresh-air 
camps and other activities, all working effectively, 
yet quietly, without the Catholic people ever realiz- 
ing how great a contribution they were making to 
the well-being of the community. The survey 
showed also what an immense task it would be to 
reorganize and codrdinate these in order to make 
them as efficient as possible and at the same time 
assure their development along lines that would 
keep them abreast of every modern sociological de- 
velopment. 

Only that the archbishop himself was so deeply 
intent on the matter and was resolved to make it 
the outstanding work of his archiepiscopacy the task 
ahead might have seemed almost deterring from 
its magnitude and the immense number of details as- 
sociated with it. The archbishop was persuaded, 
however, that the Catholics of the archdiocese could 


324 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


be made to feel pardonable pride in the development 
of their charities and at the same time acquire a 
solidarity in diocesan work that would mean much 
both for themselves and for the poor. He pro- 
ceeded to arouse the charitable feelings of his peo- 
ple and over three hundred parishes were appealed 
to, an active canvass of all their parishioners made 
and the Catholics of New York as a consequence 
came to have a consciousness of their power for good 
such as they had never had before. The pastoral 
letters of His Grace contained the strongest kind of 
urging of the duty of charity. Charity was not a © 
luxury to be indulged for the sake of the good feel- — 
ing that came with it, but an obligation that must — 
not be neglected. Some of these pastoral letters . 
with regard to charity have elicited marked atten- 


tion from leading Catholics everywhere throughout 4 


the country and it has even been said that His Grace ~ 


of New York was making important contributions 
to the Church’s literature of charity. 4 

On May 1, 1920, “The Catholic Charities of the — 
Archdiocese of New York’”’ was inaugurated. The | 
first steps were taken slowly. The work was not — 
really in action until September. His Grace became — 
president of the Catholic Charities and his Secre- ! 
tary for Charities became Executive Director. — 
Under the secretary there were set up six divisions: — 





CARDINAL HAYES 325 


Families, Children, Health, Protective Care, Social 
Action and Finance. Each of these divisions was 
under a director charged to “organize, improve and 
extend” the works of his division. His whole time 
and energy were directed along this one line. 
Weekly staff conferences were held at which com- 
mon problems were discussed and general policies 
of operation recommended. The idea was to ac- 
complish the work in the best possible way with 
progress as the watchword. No wonder that the 
State Board of Charities in its report to the Legis- 
lature of the State of New York for the year 1920 
characterized the formation of the Catholic Chari- 
ties of the Archdiocese of New York as “‘the most 
significant and important event of the year in the 
field of charitable work.” 

Under the circumstances it is not surprising that 
the State Board of Charities codperates very closely 
with the Catholic Charities. The organization of 
Catholic Charities permits of codperation with other 
bodies and facilitates the securing of accurate and 
up-to-date information concerning all charitable ac- 
tivities of a national, state or municipal character by 
sending representatives to the various important 
conferences held on these subjects. During the very 
first year Catholic Charities was represented at the 
following conferences: National Conference of So- 


326 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


cial Work; National Conference of Catholic Chari- 
ties; American Hospital Association (Annual 
Meeting) ; National Catholic Hospital Association; 
New York State Conference of Charities and Cor- 
rections; New Jersey State Conference of Chari- 
ties and Corrections; National Conference of the 
Catholic Young Men’s Diocesan Union; the Catho- 
lic Federation of Newman Clubs; City Conference 
of Charities and Corrections; City Conference on 
Unemployment; Monthly Committee Meetings for 
Dispensary Development; Monthly Conference on 
Immigration; Private Conference of Catholic, Jew- 


ish and Protestant Rooming Agencies; Private Con- 


ference on Homeless Men and Youths; Private 


Conference on Financial Federation; Catholic — 


Charities Conference in ‘Toronto; National Meet- 


ing—National Council of Catholic Women. Noth- _ 


ing shows better than a list like this how hard a task 
it is to keep in touch with modern social service ac- 
tivities. 

Realizing the great number of Catholics engaged 
in social work for private or public agencies and at 


the same time the splendid opportunity afforded by — 


organizing this group with so many common inter- 


ests, Catholic Charities instituted the Mulry Club 
as a social and vocational clearing house. Withina — 
year some six hundred members were enrolled and — 





CARDINAL HAYES 327 


much good has been accomplished. The name of 
the late Thomas Mulry who accomplished so much 
for Catholic charity in New York and whose exam- 
ple well deserved to be perpetuated was thus 
brought before social workers of this generation. 

The six major Divisions of Catholic Charities 
proceeded with their task finding ever new work to 
do. The Division of Families concerned with the 
relief of the poor in their homes was organized in 
connection with the Conferences of St. Vincent de 
Paul which for years have been the Catholic relief 
agencies of the diocese. Four district offices were 
established to codrdinate the relief work and avoid 
duplication of effort. County agents were appointed 
outside the city to direct relief work and make the 
various resources of public and private charitable 
agencies available to Catholics. Parish censuses 
were made and the status of all the Catholics espe- 
cially in the poorer quarters of the city came to be 
well known. 

The Division of Children having under its direc- 
tion thirty-two Child Caring Homes has drawn up a 
set of standards that are being generally adopted by 
all these Homes. ‘These standards are placing them 
in the first rank. The result has been a close and cor- 
dial codperation. During the first year the orphan 
asylum buildings at Kingsbridge was sold to the 


328 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


United States government to be used as a hospital 
for wounded and ailing soldiers thus helping the au- 
thorities to meet an urgent need. The children had 
to be transferred but these transfers were made in 
half the time allotted by the government and en- 
listed the highest commendation from the govern- 
ment officials and the board of trustees of the 
orphan asylum. ‘The most important element for 
reorganization has been the installation in the large 
congregate Homes of the small group system for 
child care which practically makes them equivalent 
to the Homes on the Cottage Plan. This plan is re- 


garded as the ideal by state officials and experts in — 


social work in general. A special inspector of the 
children’s homes and a dietitian from the office of 
Catholic Charities have done much to standardize 
and improve their service. All this has been done 
as well as the remodeling of buildings in conference 
with representatives from the State Board of 
Charity. 

The day nurseries for the care of children during 
the day when their mothers have to be at work have 


been very largely developed. Altogether there are 


some twenty-seven of these and they are no longer 
merely day boarding houses for children but they are 
rendering a well defined service of health and educa- 
tion. A dietitian regulates the diet and teaches the 





. 


CARDINAL HAYES 329 


youngsters and through them their mothers sound 
principles of nutrition and good habits of health and 
sanitation. There are kindergartners from the 
Board of Education and recreation teachers from 
Catholic Charities. It is in these day nurseries 
particularly that the Catholic Charities of the arch- 
diocese accomplish their most significant work. 

The Division of Health has supervision over 
twenty-two hospitals, four convalescent homes, and 
three orders of nursing Sisters which constitute the 
health unit of the archdiocese. A Central Bureau 
of Information and Service helps parochial clergy 
to place the sick with whom they come in contact and 
two new convalescent homes have been opened, one 
for men and one for women. Chaplain service has 
been improved in the non-Catholic hospitals by the 
recruiting of a band of fifty priests who volunteer to 
visit the sick in their free time. Close contact and 
cordial codperation have been maintained with the 
State Board of Charities and Department of Public 
Welfare. 

The organization of this Division is particularly 
wise and prudent. The central organization never 
assumes financial responsibility for the care of any 
patient in one of the Catholic hospitals although it 
refers many cases for treatment. Every Catholic 
hospital must make some provision for the care of 


330 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


the poor or it has no special reason for existence. 
Unless it is charitable it is not Catholic. The finan- 
cial assistance given to hospitals is granted when it 
is needed in order to maintain high standards of 
efficiency and not in consideration of the number of 
charitable cases it receives. Hundreds of thousands 
of dollars have been appropriated for hospitals for 
necessary improvements and extension to their ser- 
vice during the past six years. The hospitals in turn 
have assumed their share of responsibility toward 
the problem of poverty and have gladly accepted for 
free care the poor whose cases have been found de- 
serving. In fact their charitable contributions have 
been far in excess of any assistance they have re- 
ceived. ‘The people of the diocese have contributed 
to the general charities fund out of which hospitals 
have been helped when necessary and they in turn 
have given to the people a generous and efficient 
service. The quality of that service is best tested 
by the approval they have received from the City 
and State Departments of Health and Charities, 
from the American College of Surgeons and the dioc- 
esan supervising body. During the past year over 
33,000 patients have been treated in the hospitals. 
Only about one in three paid in full for the service 
received. The Department of Public Welfare of 
the city paid in part for one in ten of these patients. 





CARDINAL HAYES 331 


Some 9,000 made some part payment in proportion 
to their means. Nearly 8,000 made no payment 
whatever. Many of these free patients were of the 
type that remained for a long period in the hospitals 
so that altogether nearly 335,000 days of service 
were given to the poor free of charge. This service 
is made possible because Catholic hospital mainte- 
nance charges are not so high as others since the 
Sisters receive no salaries and manage most economi- 
cally, and secondly because well-to-do people who 
know the situation and realize the demands that are 
made upon the hospital Sisters make donations for 
their work. Indeed many who thus donate every 
year are in but very moderate circumstances but 
they have a true sense of charity. The out-patient 
departments of the hospitals care for still more. 
Last year some 17,000 patients were cared for. 
These dispensaries prevent great economic waste 
and restore numbers to physical fitness who might 
otherwise become hospital patients. This work is 
improving and extending all the time and is accom- 
plishing more and more good. 

All this the Cardinal Archbishop’s reorganiza- 
tion of charity has rendered easy of accomplish- 
ment and made ever so much more efficient. There is 
a sense of family codperation in all the work that 
bears the stamp of true charity. ‘There are many 


332 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


other agencies which under the cardinal’s encour- 
agement are accomplishing great benefit. He is 
very much interested in the communities of nursing 
Sisters who visit the sick poor in their homes. Last 
year these nurses cared for nearly 3,000 patients 
spending on them over $10,000 in relief, but caring 
for them and their sick rooms and making the lot 
of the sick ever so much more bearable. This 
service relieves the strain not only on the general 
hospitals but also on the hospitals for incurables. 
Were it not for the work of these Visiting Nurses 
many incurable patients would be obliged to enter 
the City Home. On acute cases the Sisters re- 
main all day and even nurse through the night, 
while they are able to visit a number of chronic 
cases in a day. Lay Auxiliaries raise the necessary 
funds. Appropriations are made from the general 
charity fund when needed but the lay auxiliary work 
is encouraged and last year the Auxiliary of the 
Dominican Sisters * of the Sick Poor furnished suf- 


* Without the Sisterhoods the accomplishment of all this social 
work by Catholic Charities would be quite impossible. Besides 
they afford the opportunity for children to be educated and re- 
ligiously trained. The value of this for the state is coming to 
be more and more recognized in the midst of the crime wave of 
our day. Religion is the great stabilizing element for social 
order. In this country there are probably about 75,000 sisters 
who are devoted to the work of charity and of education. If 
they were to receive on the average $1,000 a year each, which, 
almost needless to say, would represent a very meager and 
miserly payment for their services, they would receive some 





CARDINAL HAYES ois 


ficient funds for the work of the Sisters though the 
preceding year an appropriation of $5,000 was 
needed. 

The cardinal encouraged the foundation of a new 
religious congregation under the name of Parish 
Visitors whose principal duty is visiting the poor in 
their homes. The members of the congregation do 
not wear a conventional religious garb but are 
dressed quietly in dark clothes and make their visits 
to the homes not only during the day time but also 
in the evening. They are thus enabled to meet all 
the members of the family including those who may 
be at work during the day and are of help to them 
in the solution of their problems. All the mem- 
bers of the Parish Visitors are trained social workers 
and are required to take lectures in social service 
in Fordham University School of Social Service. 
They help the parish priest to know his people bet- 
ter, they complete the census of Catholics in each 


$75,000,000 a year. What they get is just sufficient for board 
and clothes and proper support, so that the congregation can 
receive young members and train them and take care of the 
older ones who are superannuated. This large sum is the con- 
tribution which the Sisters make to education and charity in this 
country annually. The principal that at 5 per cent interest would 
provide an annual income of $75,000,000 is $1,500,000,000. Almost 
needless to say, this is several times the endowment of all our great 
institutions of education and charity in this country. By giving 
themselves to the work, the religious have endowed Catholic 
charities and education much more than millionaires have done 
for secular institutions. 


334 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


parish, and they accomplish very much for the so- 
lution of social difficulties. They have practically 
re-created in the modern time the order of dea- 
conesses of the early Church and have provided a 
vocation for many young women who feel the call 
to the spiritual life and yet have profound sym- 
pathy for their fellow mortals and want to be of as 
much assistance to them as possible. They com- 
bine the spirit of Martha and Mary, of prayer and 
of service, in a remarkable way, and their success 
has been very gratifying to the cardinal’s heart. 
Almost needless to say the example of such self- 
sacrificing work for others exerts a great influence 
over those who come in contact with it. Example 
means ever so much more than precept and the 
cordial simple way in which these women go about 
doing good lifts up the hearts of the poor and 
touches deeply the hearts of those in better circum- 
stances who are brought in touch with their work. 
The social consolation which the visits of such 
women afford lessens social unrest and minimizes 
the tendency to social disorder. ‘There are two 
other sisterhoods whose principal work it is to visit 
the sick poor and they feel that they are the object 
of the most tender regard of His Eminence and 
that their work is considered to be of very special 
significance in the great labor of charity which he 


CARDINAL HAYES 335 


thinks the most important duty of the cardinal arch- 
bishop. 

She Division of Protective Care is accomplish- 
ing such good work in New York City where the 
problems it faces are so complicated, that it has at- 
tracted the attention of social workers everywhere. 
What has been done by the Catholic Charities Pro- 
bation Bureau of the Court of General Sessions has 
been publicly commended by the judges. Their ap- 
proval is in the official records of the court. Scien- 
tific analysis and treatment underlie all the case 
work of the Bureau. Individual treatment is given 
the problems of each man and a plan is made aim- 
ing at his complete rehabilitation. The reorganiza- 
tion of the Catholic Charities Probation Bureau, 
inspired as it was by religious and patriotic motives 
and urged by the cardinal himself because he is 
deeply interested in every phase of helpfulness for 
his people, has resulted in a work of genuine com- 
munity service. 

In the reorganization of parole work for men, 
modern scientific methods of proved value are 
utilized and the workers have all received a thor- 
ough technical training. A report is given to the 
Board of Pardons as to the home conditions, the 
employment he will be able to secure and the history 
of his career of every prisoner whose case comes be- 


336 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


fore the Board. New features have thus been ini- 
tiated in parole work by the Catholic Protective 
Society. Over one thousand men are under super- 
vision, five hundred of whom were discharged as 
having satisfactorily completed their terms and con- 
ditions of parole while about a hundred were de- 
clared delinquent. Employment was found for over 
three hundred. 

The work with the women criminals has been 
equally or perhaps even more successful. Nearly 
go per cent of the women under direction made good 


with over a thousand cases handled during the year. a 


This may be considered an absolute demonstration 
of the success of parole and probation work properly 
conducted. The report of the Catholic Charities 
for the year 1925 suggests that “it would be inter- 


esting to compare these figures with the percentage © 


of success obtained by an equal number of the grad- 
uates of any six representative institutions for higher 
education.’’ Close contact between supervisors and 
supervised is the largest factor in producing these 
eratifying results. In the parole cases this contact 
is begun long before the girl leaves the institution, 
so that by the time she is ready to be released the 
worker is fully acquainted with her and can plan in- 
telligently for her future. The spiritual factors for 
reform are particularly insisted on and the cardinal 


| 
| 
y 
4 





CARDINAL HAYES 337 


has always emphasized the necessity for recourse to 
character rebuilding by faithful attendance at re- 
ligious duties. 

The Division of Social Action has charge of so- 
cial activities of various kinds. ‘There are boys’ and 
girls’ clubs and summer camps and Newman Clubs 
and Junior Newman Clubs for students at the uni- 
versities and high schools, there is an employment 
department and a room registry as well as girls’ 
residences and immigrant homes, and then there are 
the boy scouts and settlement houses and welfare 
centers and guilds. As an example of the extent of 
this development it may be noted that for the Portu- 
guese residents of New York there are two clubs 
established by the St. Anthony’s Welfare Guild, one 
for boys at St. Raphael’s and one for girls in the 
lower Bronx. Both clubs have orchestras and a 
complete course in all branches of music for those 
who desire them. 

The County Committees have accomplished good 
work in the counties outside New York City and 
their most important function is “impenetration,”’ 
that is, the leavening of the whole population by a 
comparatively small but representative group thor- 
oughly imbued with the true philosophy of Catholic 
Charities. The work of these County Committees 
also includes Newman Clubs at Vassar and East- 


338 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


man Colleges in Poughkeepsie and at the Kingston 
High School. The subcommittees on health con- 
tinue their excellent and self-sacrificing labor for the 
school children of their respective communities and 
the subcommittees on rural activities keep the gen- 
eral committee well informed as regards country 
conditions. 

The Division of Finance secures the sinews of 
war for the whole campaign of charity. The car- 
dinal’s committee comprising over fifteen thousand 
laymen and women in three hundred and sixteen 
parishes collected nearly a million of dollars in the 


Charity drive of the very first year. Altogether — 


during the past six years some five millions of dol- 
lars have been gathered. Donations have come to 
Catholic Charities in larger sums from other sources 


which have provided an additional nearly $100,000 ~ 


a year. The Altman Foundation through Colonel 
Friedsam gave $15,000 last year; the Elks $1,000; 
the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, $500; the Fourth 
Degree Knights of Columbus, $1,000; the arch- 
diocesan Holy Name Societies, $500; the Holy 


Name Society of the New York Police Department, - 


$150. Even more surprising as indicating the thor- 
oughgoing feeling of appreciation for the cardinal’s 
reorganization of the Catholic Charities of New 
York is the fact that the charity committee of the 


Ee 


CARDINAL HAYES 339 
Masonic Order of Manhattan and Richmond do- 


nated $2,000. Five hundred dollars more came 
from the Robert Boyd Ward Fund, Inc. The New 
York Times Christmas Appeal for “The One Hun- 
dred Neediest Cases” and the New York Evening 
Post “Christmas Appeal for Aged Couples’? con- 
tributed to Catholic Charities nearly $40,000 feel- 
ing that through this agency it would be spent to the 
best advantage. 

The report of the Division of Finance shows that 
very little of the money obtained for charity is spent 
on administration and that altogether scarcely more 
than one out of every ten cents is used up in the 
expense of distribution. Of each dollar contributed 
three cents is spent for printing and other material 
used in making the appeal, three cents in parish 
organization, one cent in acquiring information as 
to conditions and the needs of those who are to be 
benefited, four cents in administration, two cents in 
county agents. As the result of this genuine econ- 
omy eighty-seven cents of every dollar given to 
charity finds its way directly into the hands of those 
who need it. 

All this has been accomplished because the car- 
dinal archbishop of New York wanted to make this 
service to the community the most important feature 
of his administration of the great archdiocese of 


340 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


New York. He eminently deserves the title that 
has been applied to him of “the cardinal of charity.” 
All this has come out of the warmth of his own heart- 
felt sympathy for.the poor and the néedy and his 
cordial recognition of the fact that charity is the 
greatest work that man can do. As he himself says, 
quoting St. Augustine, ‘Charity is the way of God 
to men and the way of men to God.” 

The cardinal has emphasized above all the com- 
mon bond of sympathy that exists in the spirit of 
helpfulness, fellowship and charity. ‘The rich and 
the poor, the strong and the weak, the great and © 
the humble, the free man and those in chains have. 
all a common contact in the charity of Christ.” 
This he said in his Pastoral of Easter, 1925. And 
then lest it should be thought that the charity which 
he tries to foster so sedulously represents in any 
sense of the word an effort to conjure social evils — 
by the panacea of condescending aid, he repudiated 
any such outlook upon charity. He said, “There is 
a pronounced tendency, at the present hour, to test 
nearly every human relation, from the cradle to 
the grave, by a purely economic valuation. It is, — 
of course, the result of materialism, pure and simple. — 
No more reactionary step, in the light of history, . 
could be imagined. In the field of charity, were 
the economic standard to prevail over the spiritual 





CARDINAL HAYES 341 


standard, which has stood the shock of centuries of 
assault and conflict, then no longer would it be 
nobler and more blessed to give than to receive. 
Rather the philosophy of might against right, of 
selfishness against kindliness, of indulgence against 
duty, and of sin against virtue would be sanctioned 
and followed.” 

Undoubtedly the place of Cardinal Hayes in the 
history of his time in the archdiocese of New York 
will be desumed from his deep interest in charity. 
Personally this constitutes the best summary of his 
character. “Those who know him best think of him 
as the personification of charity. This is not at all 
of the nature of condescension but is a genuine sen- 
timent of the dearness of all men to him because of 
the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 
Undoubtedly if he is spared to reach the years of 
his predecessor he will change the social aspect of 
New York in many ways and will add greatly to the 
happiness and well-being of the community. Christ 
Himself said that the supreme sign of His Church 
was that “The Gospel is preached to the poor.” 
This He told to the disciples of John the Baptist 
when they came to inquire what they should tell their 
master about Him. Cardinal Hayes has the feel- 
ing that the poor we shall always have about us, but 
if they are saved from the evils of poverty, they 


342 OUR AMERICAN CARDINALS 


may, contented in it find happiness even beyond 
what is granted to those who possess the world’s 
goods. And he has made it his special mission in 
life to bring this about as far as it may be done in 
the great archdiocese of New York. 





INDEX 


Ablutions, 7 

Adirondacks, 35 

ZEschylus, 35 

Aglipayan schism, 230, 233 

Albany, 34, 35, 36; bishop 
of, 130 

Altman Foundation, 338 

Alverno High School, 273 


American, characteristically, 


88; right-minded, 82; 
true, 83 

American College of Sur- 
geons, 329 


American Consistory, 284 

American Hospital Associa- 
tion, 326 

American, The Making of 
an, 95 

Americanism, 53, 269; hy- 
phenated, 106 

Americans, Portuguese, 18 

Ancient Academy of Arcadia, 


257 
‘Apostle of the Point,” 63 
Archipelago, 236 
Area, 267 
Army, Catholics in, 
English, 8 
Arthur, President, 50 
Ashland, 222 
Associated Catholic Chari- 
ties of Chicago, 263 
Assumption Academy, 239 
Athens, 3 
Augustinians, 212 
Austria, 18 


306 ; 


343 


Authority without despotism, 
116 
Axiére, Bishop of, 33 


Bailey, Archbishop, 78 

Baltimore, 5, 37, 68, 86; 
coadjutor of, 78; Third 
Plenary Council of, 81, 89 

Bardstown, 5 

Basil, 42 

Belge, 229 

Belgian missionaries, 228 

Belgium, 54 

Belloc, Hilaire, xv 

Benedict XV, Pope, 241, 313 

Benedictines, 254, 255 

Biretta, 288 

Bishop ordinary of Armed 
Forces of the United 
States, 307 

“Bishops, nursery of,’ 120 

“Bishop, the boy,” 68 

Board of Regents, 305 

Bonanzo, Most Reverend 
John, 313 

Boston, archdiocese review, 
195; coadjutor archbishop 
of, 192; College, 177 

Bottomley, Dr. John, 200 

Boursand, Father, 177 

Bowen, Reverend John M., 
258, 259 

Brady, Thomas, James T., 
John R., 4; School, 4 

Breckenridge, 37 


344 


Brothers of the Christian 
Schools, 251, 296 

Brussels, 228 

Bruté, Bishop, 5 

Bryant, 174 

Buffalo, 34, 237, 247 


Cahenslyism, 104 
Camps, training, 114 
Canevin, Bishop, 105 
Canton, 66 
Cardinal, Belgian, 
charity, 340 ; 
Carroll, Rt. Rev. James J., 


54; of 


227 

Cathedral College, 302, 303, 
304, 306 

Cathedral, St. Patrick’s, 11, 
47; old, 47 

Catholic Charities of Arch- 
diocese of New York, 324; 
Probation Bureau, 335 

Catholic Church Extension 
Society, 259 

Catholic Church, logical, 76; 
losses, 104 

Catholic Club, 316 

Catholic Encyclopedia, 300 

Catholic Federation of New- 
man Clubs, 326 

Catholic High School for 
Boys, 239 

Catholic High School for 
Girls, 239 

Catholic School, board, 137; 
exhibit, 138; question, 102 


Catholic Societies, Federa- 
tion of, 149 

Catholic Summer School, 
106, 185 


INDEX 


Catholic University Bulletin, 
301 

Catholic War Council, 312 

Catholicism, 269 

Catholics increase, 51 

Cenacle, Association of the, 
203 

Centenary, 
York, 149 

Century Magazine, 75 

Cerretti, Cardinal, 87 

Charity, Cardinal 
and, 320 

Children, Division of, 327 

Christian Brothers, 36, 252, 
253, 255, 295 

Christians, Japanese, 126 

Christmas, festival of, 81 

Chrysostom, 42 

Church and liberty, 77 

Church of the Transfigura- 
tion, 294 

Churches, city of, 2; Protes- 
tant 71 

Citizen, first, 53 

Citizens, Catholic, 83 

City Conference on unem- 
ployment, 326 

City Hall, 293; Home, 332; 
large, 3 

Civics, 218 

Civil War, 63, 64, 249 

Cleveland, President, 90, 91, 


Catholic New 


Hayes 


99 

College, Boston, 177; East- 
man, 328; Harvard, 178; 
North American, 50, 125, 
186, 233, rector of, 186; 
St. Charles, 59, (66;758 
Francis Xavier, 277; St. 
John’s, 4, 32, 125; St. Vin- 


INDEX 


cent’s, 254; Vassar, 337 
Colombo Hospital, 238 
Colonial Church architec- 

ture, 268, 270 
Columbus, Century of, 126 
Constitution, centennial of, 

90 
Converts’ Confirmation, 209 
Cook, Reverend Father, 227 
Cor unum et anima una, 162 
Cottage Plan, 328 
Council, Third Plenary, 81, 

Gos Vatican) 45/"127 
Counties, lower, 79 
County Cavan, 171 
Cram, Ralph Adams, 276 
Crime increase, 248 
Cuba legislation, 109 
Cullen, Cardinal, 13 


Daly, Augustine, 57; Justice 
Joseph, 57 

Damien, Father, xii 

De La Salle, John Baptist, 
251s nstitute,, 251,253; 
295 

De Sales, St. Francis, 1, 29 

Del Valle, San Andrea, 14 

Democrat, 70 

Denis, Pere, 175 

Desplaines, 265 

Divine Word, Fathers of 
the, 229 

Dolan, Father James, 63 

Dollinger, 21 

Dominican Sisters of the 
Sick Poor, 332 

Dowling, Justice Victor J., 
314 

Dubois, Bishop, 5 


345 


Dungiven, 3 

Dunwoodie, 137 

Dwight, Professor Thomas, 
199 


East Side, lower, 249, 251, 
255, 315 

Eastman College, 338 

Edson School, 173 

Education, collegiate, 274; 
high school, 273; minister 
of, 241, parochial school, 
271, 2733 university, 274 

Egan, Mrs. James, 294; Mr. 
James, 295 

Elder, 6 

Elizabeth of Hungary, St., 20 

Elks, the, 338 

Ellicott City, 59 

Emmitsburg, 4, 6, 8, 30 

Enagh, 171 

Encyclopedia, Catholic, 144 

Eucharistic Congress, 271, 
291 

Euripides, 3 


Faber, 127 

Faith of Our Fathers, The, 
73, 76 

Faith, Propagation of, 156 

Families, Division of, 327 

Faribault School plan, 102 

Farley, Cardinal, 21, 36, 42, 
142; installation of, 152 

Father’s death bed, 173 

Felix, Father, 116 

Fells Point, 63 

Ferrero Guglielmo, 287 

Fesch, Cardinal, 13 

Filipino insurrection, 225 


346 


Finance, Division of, 338 

Finley, John, 152 

Foch, Marshal, 2 

Following of Christ, The, 
245 

Food Commission, 
States, 54 

Fordham University, 32, 33, 
34; School of Social Serv- 
Ice, 333 

Fort Sumter, Battle of, 249 

Forum, Common Cause, 210, 
Zil 

Freedom, The New, xiv 

Frederick, 5 

Frelinghuysen, Mr., 50 

French protest, 143 

Fresno, 227 

Friars’ lands, 107 

Friedsam, Colonel, 338 

Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, 


United 


338 
Fulton, Father, 177 


Garfield, President, 80 

Gaynor, Mayor, 152 

Genius, born late, 170 

Gentleness, 220 

George, Henry, 97 

Gercke, Rt. Reverend Daniel 
vated 

“Gibbons, honest Tom,” 55 

Gilmour, Bishop, 82 

Girardville, 222 

Gleeson, Reverend Matthew 
C., 309 

Glennon, Archbishop, 110 

Gomez, President, 109 

Good Shepherd, Houses of, 
238, 264 


INDEX 


G6rres, 21 
Gothic architecture, 256 
Government, Church, 24 
Grey Nuns Academy, 239 
Gross, Father, 69 
Guild, Catholic Truth, 210; 
Catholic Evidence, 210 
Guild of St. Agnes, 205 
Guild of St. Appollonia, 201 
Guild of St. Genesius, 204 
Guild of St. Imelda, 205 
Guild of St. Luke, 198 
Guild of St. Zita, 204, 205 
Guild of the Presentation, 
205 
Guilday, Reverend Dr., 167 
Guilds, revivification of, 198 


Hanna, Senator Mark, xv, 91 

Hanover, 5 

Harding, President, 121 

Harvard College, 178 

Hayes, President, 80 

Health, Division of, 329 

Heart, 94 

Hecker, Father, 58 

Hennessy, Archbishop, 82 

Hewitt, Father, 58 

Hibben, President, 303 

History, a conspiracy, 743 
American, 218 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 10 

Holy Child, Association of 
the, 215 

Holy Name Societies, 338 

Holy Name Society of the 
New York Police Depart- 
ment, 338 

Holy Office, Congregation of 
the, 98 


INDEX 


Homeland, Irish, 53 

Hopkins, Mark, 297 

Horace, 142 

Hospital, Massachusetts 
General, 184 

Hughes, Bishop, 32, 34, 36; 
Archbishop, 37, 38 

Humanity, adorned, 2; rights 
of, 100 

Humor, sense of, 95 


Ignatius, St., 160 

Nolo 3227, 23351234 

Immaculata High School, 
273 

Immigrants, Italian, 165 

Impulses, kindly, 94 

Indians, Catholic, 80 

Industry, captains of, 97 

Inquisition, the, 99 

Intuition, 94; feminine, 94 

Ireland, Archbishop, 82, 102 

Irish humor, 95 

PY W.aW 219 


Jackson, Andrew, 55 

Japan, 191; papal ambassa- 
dor, 191; Prime Minister 
of, 192 

Japan’s Christianity, 126 

Jaro, 227, 233, 235 

Jesuits, 212 

John the Baptist, 341 

Josephinum High School, 
273 

Josephites, 213 

Junior Newman Clubs, 337 


Keene, Bishop, 82 


bg 


Kelley, Rt. Reverend Mon- 
signor Francis C., 259 

Kempis, Thomas a, 245 

Kenwood-on-the-Hudson, 36 

Kingston High School, 338 

Knights of Columbus, 312; 
Fourth Degree, 338 

Know-Nothing Movement, 
64; riots, 247 

Knox, Secretary of State, 
109 

Ku Klux Klan, 232 

Kulturkampf, 229 


Labor, condition of, 101; 
Christian charter of, 100; 
knights of, 96 

Lacordaire, 19, 21 

Lamennais, 19 

Lansdowne, 238 

Laryma, titular bishop of, 


257 
Lavelle, Rt. Rev. Michael 
S122. 1 380160 
Lawrence, 219 
Legislature, New York State, 


325 
Ledochowski, Cardinal, 189 
Leo XIII, Pope, 85, 101, 
103, 187, 225; Encyclical 
of, 102 
Liberalism, 87, 90, 91 
Liberties, popular, 82 
Liberty, civil and religious, 
89; without license, 116 
Lincoln, President, 37, 249 
Lisieux, 242 
Lithuanian Church, 255 
Little Flower, 242 
“Little Seminary,” 266, 267 


348 


Liturgical Academy, Censor 
of, 256 

Liturgies, various, 164 

Lockport, 265 

Locust Point, 65 

Logue, Cardinal, 147 

Lord, Professor Edwin, 174 

Louisville, 61, 257 

Luzon, Northern, 225 

Lyme, 268 

Lytton, Bulwer, 1 


MacGinley, Rt. 
John B., 227 
Mai, Cardinal Angelo, 13 
Maine, official reception in, 
190 
Maistre, Comte de, 74 
Malines, Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of, 55 
Mallinkrodt High School, 
274. 
Manera, Father, 14 
Manhattan College, 
254, 295 
Manning, Cardinal, 99, 111 
Marriage, mixed, 135 
Martin, Therese, 242 
Maryknoll, 158, 214 
Masonic lodge rooms, 71; 
Order, 339 
Mass, nightworkers’, 
seven languages, 164 
McCloskey, Rt. Reverend 
James B., 227 
McCloskey, John, Cardinal, 
60, 85, 131; Life of, 154 
McDonnell, Bishop, 255 
McGill, Bishop, 76 
McKinley, President, 91 


Reverend 


253; 


196; 


INDEX 


McNierney, Rt. Reverend 
Francis, 130 

Melrose, 239 

Memory, 93 

Men and their work, 303 

Mendel, 2 

Mercier, Cardinal, xv, 2, 54 

Mercy High School, 273, 
Hospital, 277 

Merry del Val, Monsignor, 
189 

Metz, Herman A., 152 

Mezzofanti, Cardinal, 13 

Military Bishop of 
United States, 308 

Miraflores, 240 

Misericordia Hospital, 238; 
Maternity Hospital, 263 

Missions, Catholic Foreign, 
214 

Mohler, 21 

Molo, 235 

Monks of the West, 254 

Monsignori, 254 

Montalembert, 19, 22 

Monte Cassino, 254 

Montreal, 223 

Mooney, Rt. Reverend Mon- 
signor, 314 

Mother’s death bed, 185 

Moynihan, Reverend Dr. 
Humphrey, 167 

“Mountain, Old,” 5 

“Mountain, The,” 6, 9, 10 

Mozetta, 288 

Mt. St. Mary’s, 4, 10 

Mundelein, 267, 275 

Mulry Club, 326; Thomas, 
326 

Murphy, Dr. John B., 277 

Mystery, meditation, 119 


the 


INDEX 


Mysticism, Christian, 21 


Napoleon, 17 

National Catholic Hospital 
Association, 326 

National Conference of 
Catholic Charities, 326 

National Conference of 
Catholic Young Men’s 
Diocesan Union, 326 

National Conference of 
Social Work, 325 

National Council of Catho- 
lic Women, 326 

Navy, Catholics in, 306 

Nazianzen, Gregory, 42 

Ne temere, 301 

Neri, St. Philip, wale 

Neuva Caceres, 227 

Neuva Segovia, 225, 
227; 233, 236 

New Jersey State Confer- 
ence of Charities and Cor- 
rections, 326 

New Orleans, 57, 58 

New York, archbishop of, 
42, 44, 46; centenary of 
the diocese of, 147 ; coadju- 
t01 0%; 33; 41 

New York Evening Post, 
339 

New York State Conference 
of Charities and Correc- 
tions, 326 

New York Times, 301 

Newman, Cardinal, 20, 111, 
127")@lubs, 337 

North American 
301 


226, 


Review, 


S49 


North Carolina, Vicariate 
Apostolic of, 68 
North Woods, 35 


Nyack, 32 


Oblates, 212 

O’Connell, Monsignore, 188 

Ohne Hast, ohne Rast, 306 

“Old Mountain,” 5 

Oratorians, 127 

Ordinarius castrensis, 310 

O’Reilly, Rev. James T., 
219 

Orwigsburg, 239 

Our Lady of the Isle, 256 

Ozanam, 19 


Papal ambassador, 191; 
chamberlain, 131; curia, 
149 


Parish Visitors, 333 

Parishes, rural, 163 

Parocchi, Cardinal, 224 

Parochial School Education, 
271 

Parole work, 335 

Passionists, 207, 210 


Pasteur, 3 

Pastoral letters of Cardinal 
Hayes, 324 

Pastorelli, Very Reverend 
Louis, 213 


Patriotism, 218 

Patrizi, Cardinal, 128 

Peril, Yellow, 158 

Perrone, Father, 14 

Peru, 240; President of, 241 

Philadelphia, archdiocese of, 
238 


359 


Philippines, 225 

Pius X, Pope, 196, 299 

Pius ioc 1s Pope e280) 22st, 
295). 314,138.19 

Plato,iit0 

Poor, contributions of, 48; 
sacrifices of, 48 

Pope, infallibility of the, 45 

Portland, bishop of, 189 

Powderly, Terrence V., 96, 


99 

Presentation, Guild of the, 
205 

Probation Bureau, Catholic 
Charities, 335 

Problem, Italian, 166 

Problems, Philippine, 107 

Propaganda, College of, 224, 
255, 257; congregation of, 


39 
Propagation of the Faith, 
Society of the, 213, 216 
Protective Care, Division of, 


B30 
Protectory, Catholic, 51 
Public Welfare, Department 
of, 329 
Puritanism, 80 


Queen of All Saints, 256 
Quigley Preparatory Semi- 
nary, 266 


Rampolla, Cardinal, 109 
Raven Hill)/230 
Recollections, monthly, 160 
Redemptorists, 212 
Reformation, 246 

Reisach, Cardinal, 13, 39, 41 


INDEX 


Religion, Science and re- 
vealed, 21 

Renaissance, 15 

Republic, American, 83 

Rerum novarum, 101 

Retreats for men, 208 

Richelieu, Cardinal, 111 

Riis, Jacob A., 95 

River Forest, 276 

Robert Boyd Ward Fund, 
Inc., 339 

Rome, 3; Italian invasion of, 
128 

Rooker, Bishop, 234 

Roosevelt, President, 
153, 225 

Rosary, 120; College, 276 

Rose Hill Manor, 44 

Russell, Bertrand, viii, 134 

Ryan, Archbishop, 82, 112, 


aes) 


108, 


Sacred theology, Doctor of, 
257 

Salaries, 77 

Sarto, Cardinal, 110 

Satolli, Cardinal, 104, 110, 
189 

Scheut, 228 

Schism, Aglipayan, 233 

School question, Catholic, 
102 

Schools, religious, 133; su- 
pervisors of, 217 

Secondary Plenary Council, — 
68 

Seminary, ladies’, 8 

Seventh son, 170 

Shakespeare, 2 

Sherborne, Lady, 1 


INDEX 


Simeoni, Cardinal, 80, 100 
Sinsinawa, 275 

Sisters of Charity, 36 
Sisters of Mercy, 36, 277 
Sisters of St. Dominic, 251, 


275 

Sisters of St. Joseph, 36 

Sisters of St. Paul of Char- 
tres, 234 

Sisters of the Assumption, 
235 

Sisters of the Immaculate 
Heart of Mary, 240 

Smith, Governor Alfred E., 
249, 293 

Social Action, Division of, 


337 

“Society of Jesus, new,” 14 

Sogarth, 29 

Sophocles, 3 

Spain, decadence of, 18 

Spalding, Bishop, 61; Arch- 
bishop, 67, 68, 82, 84 - 

Spanish American problems, 
108; War, 106 

Splaine, Rt. Reverend Mon- 
signor, 199 

St. Agnes, Monastery of, 
245 

St. Andrew’s School, 294 

St. Anne’s Association, 203 

St. Anthony's Welfare 
Guild, 337 

St. Benedict, 254 

St. Charles College, 59, 60, 
62, 174 

St. Charles Seminary, 223, 
237 

St. Francis Orphanage, 229 

St. Gabriel’s Church, 132, 


297 


351 


St. James parish, 294 

St. John’s College, 4, 32, 123 

St. Joseph’s Church, 23, 24, 
26, 30, 31, 32 

St. Joseph’s Seminary, 36, 
137, 297 

St. Mary’s, 124, 219, 223 

St. Mary’s Institute for the 
Blind, 238 

St. Mary’s of the Lake, 267, 
270, 291 

St. Mary’s Theological Semi- 
nary, 61 

St. Mary’s Training and In- 
dustrial Schools, 265 

St. Nicholas School, 250 

St. Patrick’s Cathedral, His- 
tory of, 154 

St. Peter’s, 255 

St. Regis, Association of, 203 

St. Teresa of Spain, 245, 246 

St. Therese, 242 

St. Vincent’s College, 254 

St. ,Vincent de Paul, Con- 
ferences of, 327 

State Board of Charities, 325 

State, Secretary of, 50 

Stevenson, R. L., xi 

Spain’s Golden Century, 246 

Steyl, 229 

Stonor, Monsignor, 189 

Strauss, Oscar S., 152 

Strength, 220 

Sulpicians, 61 

Supreme Court of the United 
States, xv, QI 

Supreme Court and the Ro- 
man Catholic Church, 9a 

“Survey, spiritual,” 195 

Symbolism, 21 

System, American, 89 


352 

Taft, President, 106, 120, 
153, 225 

Technology, Massachusetts 


Institute of, 178 

T hanatopsis, 174 

‘Thanksgiving Day, Observ- 
ance of, 80 

Thomas a Kempis, 245 

‘Thucydides, ix, 250 

Times, Tracts for the, 20 

Tour, European, 12; grand, 
16 

‘Towns, small, 3 

Troy, 36 

‘Trusteeism, 24 

‘Tucker, 75 

‘Tucson, 227 


United Catholic Works, 321 
United States, Archbishops 


of the, 114 
United War Works, 313 
University, Catholic, 84, 
207 sn) areporiany iid 4s 


Heights, 179; of Chicago, 
276 


Van Rossum, Cardinal, 212 

Vanutelli, Cardinal, 149 

Vassar College, 337 

Vatican Council, 45, 127 

Vaughan, Cardinal, 118 

Venice, Patriarch of, 110 

Vigan diocesan seminary, 
226, 230 

Vincentians, 212 


Virginia, 76 


INDEX 


Visiting Nurses, 332 
Vocations in Boston, 211 


Walsh, Reverend James A., 
158, 214 

Walworth, Father, 58 

War, Civil, 63, 64, 249; 
Spanish American, 106, 
225; World, 306, 318 

Ward, Reverend Felix, 118 

Waring, Monsignor, 314 

Washington’s headquarters, 


44 
Weld, Cardinal, 13 
W eltanschaung, 211 
West Point, 252 
Will, Allen Sinclair, 116 
Williams, Archbishop, 180, 
181, 192 
Wilson, President, xiii, 114, 
312 | 
Wiseman, Cardinal, 13, 20, 
i i a 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 111 
Women, League of Catholic, 


General Leonard, 


109 
“Workers for God and 
Country, The,” 139 
Working man, 184 
Works, Cardinal O’Con- 
nell’s, 186 


Xavier, St. Francis, 126 


Zamboanga, 227 


(2) 





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ee a 














OF THE SPIRIT 


PEARL: A STUDY IN SPIRITUAL DRYNESS. 
By Sister M. Madeleva. 


After a careful study of the considerations of other 
scholars, Sister M. Madeleva gives her own interpreta- 
tion of this beautiful and famous old English poem 
which she sees as an allegory of a man’s struggle for 
faith against doubt and evil. 


CHAUCER’S NUNS. 
By Sister M. Madeleva. 


In this volume Sister M. Madeleva reveals besides fine 
scholarship and, as a Catholic nun, her unique point of 
view, a vivacity and charm of writing that is delightful. 


KNIGHTS ERRANT 
By Sister M. Madeleva. 


A volume of lovely verses of nature and of spiritual 
experience. Bits of the world’s life stand out, seen 
from the nun’s viewpoint. 


STARSHINE AND CANDLELIGHT. 
By Sister Mary Angelita. 

Reflected in the poems is a spirit of delicacy and 
culture fired to poetic expression by a keen sense of 
beauty. Some are purely personal lyrics, the record of 
a mood or emotion. Others are translations of Hugo, 
Bourget, and other famous poets. 


TROUBADOURS OF PARADISE. 
By Sister M. Eleanore. 


Presents the saints from a new point of view—human 
beings who have had to face in their lives the same 
problems that meet us all. It is not only through their 
martyrdom that these men and women inspire us, but 
through the conduct of their lives day by day. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
New York London 








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